


fool's gold - bangtan/taekook au

by kenthedoll



Category: Fool's Gold (2008), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Arguments, Attempted Murder, Bottom Taehyung, Crude Humor, Death Threats, F/M, Fluff, Gangsters, Graphic depictions of violence - Freeform, Korean-American AU, Lovers to enemies to lovers, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Minor Character Death(s), Murder, Namjoon is a parent, Near Death Experiences, Scuba Diving, Smut, Steward Taehyung, Taekook are divorced, Top Jungkook, Treasure Hunter Jungkook, free diving, use of firearms/bombs/explosives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:15:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26127124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenthedoll/pseuds/kenthedoll
Summary: Treasure hunter Jeon Jungkook has sunk his marriage, and his trusty boat, in his obsessive quest to find the legendary Queen's Dowry. When he finds a vital clue that may finally pinpoint the treasure's whereabouts in the Bahamas, he drags his ex-husband and diving partner, Kim Taehyung--as well as Taehyung's billionaire boss, Kim Namjoon--along with him on the hunt. But Jungkook is not the only one interested in locating the gold; His former mentor-turned-enemy, Min Yoongi, will stop at nothing to beat him to it.ORThe Taekook version of the 2008 movie Fool's Gold, starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey
Relationships: Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V, Jung Hoseok | J-Hope/Park Jimin, Kim Namjoon/Original Female Character
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE
> 
> THIS STORY IS A DIRECT COPY OF THE MOVIE "FOOL'S GOLD"
> 
> IT HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED FROM MY WATTPAD ACCOUNT (@ ken-the-doll) BECAUSE OF WATTPAD'S INCREASING RESTRICTIONS

__

_On July 24th, 1715, in celebration of the marriage of King Philip of Spain, the largest treasure fleet in maritime history set sail from Havana, Cuba._

_The 500 million dollars worth of gold, silver, and jewels, came to be known as_ The Queen's Dowry _._

_Unfortunately, in his eagerness to consummate the marriage, King Philip ordered the fleet to sail at the worst time of year._

_And so, the great galleons, heavy with their sparkling cargo, sailed straight into a massive hurricane._

_They were never seen again._

**\---**

"What the hell was that?!" Seokjin Kim shouted, upon resurfacing in the ocean just off the coast of Topsail Cay in the Bahamas, with his younger friend--and fellow experienced scuba diver--Jeongguk Jeon.

"What was what?" Jeongguk asked, after spitting out the mouthpiece (also known as the "regulator") of the tube that was connected to the oxygen tank he had strapped to his back.

"I'm referring to the enormous underwater explosion!!" Jin exasperatedly replied.

Meanwhile, Jeongguk removed his goggles to get a closer look at whatever he'd just found beneath the sandy floor of the ocean, for he was pretty certain that it may have been something he had spent _several years_ of his life searching for.

The shard of a dinner plate rested heavy in his hand, and he was quick to pull his knife from the pocket of his trunks, in order to carve off the sand and barnacles that were stuck to it.

Then, at the sight of faint, blue markings on the bottom of it, Jeongguk's eyes widened and he immediately looked up at Seokjin.

"Jin?"

"What?"

"Do you have any idea what this is?"

"I would guess it's a piece of a plate from _Howard Johnson's_."

"Do you have any idea what this is, buddy?" Jeongguk's lips stretched into a beaming grin, as he wrapped his free arm around Jin's shoulders and hugged him with glee.

"This is it! This is _it_ , man!" Jeongguk shook his head incredulously, as if he couldn't believe his eyes. "This is what I've been looking for, for eight years. _Eight years_!!" he cheered, even going so far as to press an enthusiastic kiss to Seokjin's temple.

"Oh, thank God..." Jeongguk breathed, before he leaned back to float horizontally upon the water's surface for a moment. "Thank you!! Oh, I _knew_ it was here! I _knew it_!!"

As Jeongguk celebrated his discovery, Seokjin took note of the fact that the boat they came in was now missing.

However, before Jin could even inform him, Jeongguk was leaning forward to tread the water once more, asking "where's the boat?" as he spun in a complete circle just to be sure it was really gone. "Where's the boat??"

"I don't know," Jin answered honestly, leading Jeongguk to look at him once again.

"What, did somebody just _take it_??" he theorized before he continued to look around, to which Seokjin pulled his goggles back on and took a quick look underwater.

Then, after lifting his head and taking a breath, Seokjin reluctantly said, "I found it..."

"What do you mean? Where is it?"

"It'll come to you..."

Jeongguk's brows furrowed in confusion for a moment, and he took another quick look around, before he finally glanced down, at which point his lips parted in a gasp when he could see the blurred outline of their boat, as it apparently sank to the bottom of the ocean.

"Oh, no..." he ducked his head beneath the water to get a better look.

"For some reason, I'm not entirely surprised," Jin huffed when Jeongguk could hear him again.

"Oh, _no_!" Jeongguk panicked, completely disregarding Jin's comment, as he took a deep breath and dove down toward the boat.

He slipped the regulator back into his mouth on the way down, but he swore he felt a chunk of his heart breaking off, when he realized the extent of the damage the boat had taken.

Not only was his handwriting lifting from his meticulously marked maps as the ink of his pens bled into the water, but several pages worth of information regarding his findings had been _burned_ as well, as they'd all been taped to the inner wall of the waterlogged cabin.

One of the only things left unscathed by the apparent fire--and the subsequent sinking of the boat--was a photograph of himself and his husband, Taehyung, which had been taped near the steering wheel.

Carefully, Jeongguk peeled it from the wall, folded it in half, and brought it back to the surface with him, where Seokjin remained afloat, waiting for Jeongguk's return, along with a much smaller boat.

"Hey, guys!" Jeongguk greeted the two men upon it, Cordell and Curtis, who worked for the man Jeongguk was currently indebted to.

"Get in," Cordell reached an unenthusiastic hand out toward them.

"I suppose you wanna know where the boat went," Jeongguk said, instead of taking his hand.

"It took us a minute to figure it out, too," Seokjin added.

"You sunk it," Curtis said simply, as he and Cordell had watched the boat catch fire and sink firsthand from the beach.

"Listen, Curtis, forget the boat, alright?" Jeongguk shook his head at that, while he raised the shard of the dinner plate he'd been holding onto. "We found something. I mean, we _found_ something!"

"Bigg Bunny spent some _major_ bank on that leaky ass piece of shit," Cordell narrowed his eyes at him in suspicion. "How come it sunk?"

"Look, boats sink," Jeongguk shrugged. "I mean, nobody knows _why_. Can I show you what I found??"

"I think it was the compressor," Jin told them.

"Don't help me," Jeongguk muttered, without looking over at him.

"I want them to know it was _you_ who stole their money."

"You didn't buy a new compressor?" Cordell glared at Jeongguk incredulously.

"Is it okay if I take off now?" Seokjin asked curiously.

"Yeah, man, we don't care about you," Curtis answered bluntly, waving him off to dismiss him.

"You disloyal _prick_ ," Jeongguk slowly shook his head at Seokjin.

Then, he splashed water in Jin's face, earning a harsh splash to the face in return, and they both continued splashing each other back and forth like children, until Cordell pulled his gun and shot a round into the water beside the pair, scaring both of them away from one another.

"Whoa, whoa! Easy!" Jeongguk raised his hands up, leading Jin to do the same in response.

"Get in the damn boat!" Cordell demanded.

**\---**

"Oh..." Taehyung frowned at the sight of his own crying face, in the bathroom mirror of the yacht he'd been stewarding, just as a way to make money for the time being.

He never thought a day would come where he'd be divorcing Jeongguk, his husband of over a _decade_ , but there he was, crying about the difficult decision he'd made, as he was meant to be preparing to serve lunch to the older man he worked for.

He'd given Jeongguk several chances to step up and make it right, but everyone has their limits, and Taehyung had finally reached his.

But Taehyung didn't want to let his personal life interfere with his professional life. Therefore, he patted his tears away with a balled up tissue, before he tossed it in the trash and ran his fingers through his wavy, black hair.

"What perfect hair," he told his reflection, choosing to ignore the way his voice cracked, as he attempted to cheer himself up with positive affirmations. "What a perfect hairstyle. Oh, my God, what perfect _brows_. Where did you get them done?"

"You did them _yourself_??" he gasped, despite the tears that continued to stream down his face, before he frustratedly wiped them away with his fingertips instead.

"Oh, my _God_! They're so incredibly _perfect_! Like your... incredibly perfect _face_ , and your... perfect _personality_..." he sniffled.

He took a deep breath after a moment, willing himself to calm down, and giving his eyes a moment to look less red and puffy, before he was putting on a smile and returning to the cabin of the yacht.

"Lillian, I've called Teddy and Purdy, and they're not going to tell their editors not to publish stories about her..." Namjoon Kim spoke to his ex-wife over the phone--regarding their twenty-one-year-old daughter, Gemma--as he stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end of the luxurious cabin. "It's how they make a living. Anyway, what about the other half-dozen magazines she's always appearing in, half-clothed and halfway on her way to the halfway house?"

Upon hearing that, Taehyung pursed his lips indifferently, but of course chose to stay out of it, as it wasn't his business, he wasn't trying to get fired and, quite frankly, he had bigger things to worry about right then than the scandalous behavior of the billionaire's only child.

"No, no, no, I assure you that as soon as Gemma arrives, I have every intention of giving her a very firm talking to, and I--" Namjoon suddenly paused. "Hello? Oh..." he sighed to himself, as he realized he'd been hung up on.

Then, he finally took note of Taehyung's presence, where he'd just placed the man's lunch on the table behind him.

"My ex-wife..." Namjoon offered an explanation with an awkward smile.

"Yes, sir," Taehyung nodded understandingly, and he was just about to leave the man be, when he remembered what was to come the following morning.

"Was there something else, uh...?" Namjoon paused again, as he couldn't quite remember Taehyung's name.

Taehyung didn't really blame him, as he was still a pretty new addition to the crew, and Namjoon's eyesight definitely wasn't what it used to be.

"Tae."

"I'm sorry," Namjoon apologized sincerely to the younger man. "Tae, yes."

"No, sir," Taehyung answered his initial question. "I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you accommodating me."

"How did I do that?"

"You know... by agreeing to stop in Key West for my thing tomorrow..."

"Your thing...?" Namjoon's brows furrowed in confusion. "Oh, yes! I remember. You're getting married, aren't you?"

Taehyung's brows raised at that. "Oh, _no_. Divorced..."

"Oh..." Namjoon frowned sympathetically. "Your idea?"

"Yeah..."

"I-I don't mean to pry, just--"

"That's alright," Taehyung shook his head dismissively. "I'll tell you all about it sometime."

So Namjoon nodded in agreement. "If you'd like."

"Anyway... thanks, again."

"You're welcome."

**\---**

"I authorized sixty two thousand, five hundred eighty-one dollars, and forty-three cents to fix that boat."

Jeongguk stared blankly at the gangster sitting before him.

"So where my money at?"

"Oh, I don't know, um..." Jeongguk shrugged, as he remained standing between Bigg Bunny and his henchmen. "It's all over."

"All over _where_?"

"The world...?"

"All over the world."

"The Caribbean, mainly," Jeongguk specified. "I mean, hell, I was pretty much blown out at just about every dive supplier south of Key West."

"I don't believe this guy," Bigg Bunny said to Cordell, who sat off to his right.

"Look, I used the money to pay off some old debts..." Jeongguk began simply, causing the men around him to gape incredulously. "Which--if anything--should _reassure_ you because now I owe _you_ money, and _you_ know that _I'm_ good for it. Now, can we talk about the plate?" he asked with a hopeful expression.

"This looks like a plate from _Howard Johnson's_ ," Bigg Bunny muttered, once he lifted the plate shard from the table between himself and Jeongguk.

"It is _not_ a plate from _Howard Johnson's_ , man," Jeongguk rolled his eyes. "That's got half the Vangor family crest stamped on the back of it, and if you'd just _let me get back down to my boat_ , right? Before my _books rot_? I'll _prove_ it."

"Shit looks more to me like half a _Arby's_ logo or somethin'."

"Look at the filigree scalloping on the rim," Jeongguk told him, so he studied the edge of the plate a bit closer. "Do you understand what this means??"

Then, Bigg Bunny took one last look at Jeongguk, before he told Curtis and Cordell to, "get his embezzlin' ass off my island."

"Fine," Jeongguk's jaw set in response, as the pair moved to stand at either side of him. "Can I have my shard back?"

"You ain't gon' need it."

"So you _do_ know what it means," Jeongguk's brows furrowed at that, right before his entire world went black, as he'd been cracked over the back of the head by Curtis' pistol, instantly rendering him unconscious.


	2. one

"You guys are making a _big_ mistake," Jeongguk shook his head, while he stood at the back of one of Bigg Bunny's boats, with Cordell wrapping the chain of it's anchor tight around his ankles, and Curtis preventing him from running and/or fighting his way out by keeping his gun on him.

"Bigg Bunny is _never_ gonna find the _Aurelia_ without me," he confidently assured them. "You ever hear the expression, "miss by an inch, miss by a mile"?" he asked, as Cordell finished chaining his ankles together and stood tall before him with a blank expression.

"It's a diving expression," Jeongguk explained. "Meaning, you miss by an _inch_ , you miss by a _mile_."

Cordell & Curtis shared brief looks of annoyance.

"Now, that wreck could be scattered over _twenty_ miles, guys!"

"Any last words?" Cordell asked, leading Curtis to step closer to Jeongguk with his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot.

"Yeah..." Jeongguk sighed to himself. "Tell Tae I love him."

"Okay...?" Cordell raised a brow at that. "Who's Tae?"

"He's my husband," Jeongguk answered simply. "At least, he will be until ten o'clock tomorrow morning. He's divorcing me... and I still don't know what I did wrong."

"Well, brother, you ain't never gonna find out, neither," Curtis replied, before he and Cordell moved to shove Jeongguk into the water.

Before they could manage to do so, however, Jeongguk leaned back against the edge of the boat and kicked Cordell square in the chest, allowing for him to sock Curtis in the jaw, then grab a hold of the cooler that sat off to the side of the deck.

As Cordell came running toward him, Jeongguk swung the cooler by the handles and smacked him in the face with it, before the momentum forced him to drop it into the water. That's when Jeongguk lost his footing, Curtis rushed to tug his arms behind his back, and Cordell grabbed a hold of his legs as he stood from the ground with blood dripping from his nostril.

They carried his flailing body across the deck, but just before they could toss him into the ocean, Jeongguk managed to break one of his arms out of Curtis' hold; At which point he snatched the pistol from the holster at his hip, and Cordell dropped his legs, in order to grab hold of the anchor and toss it overboard.

"OH, SHIT!!" Jeongguk shouted as the chain was quickly being tugged downward into the clear water, resulting in the way his body was abruptly dragged over the edge of the deck.

Luckily, he grabbed a hold of the railing at the very last second, and he hit the gym often enough to manage holding the anchor up beneath the water, as he held onto the back of the boat for dear life.

Then, as Cordell raised his foot--no doubt to stomp on Jeongguk's hands--Jeongguk raised the pistol and shot him straight through the underside of it, leading him to scream in pain, as he fell back onto his ass upon the deck.

Jeongguk turned the gun toward Curtis next, and he was aiming for his head as he pulled the trigger once more, but he grazed the tip of his diamond-studded ear instead.

"Use the boat!!" Cordell told Curtis, "start the engine!!"

So Curtis rushed to the steering wheel, despite the searing pain at the side of his head, before he started up the boat and began to accelerate, which of course made it a hell of a lot harder for Jeongguk to stay above the surface of the water.

" _SHIT_!!" Jeongguk cursed again, before he bit down into the slide of the pistol, in order to hold onto the back of the boat with both hands.

As the water continued to splash up into his face, however, the gun slipped from between his teeth, over his bare arm, and into the water. Then, he took a deep breath and, finally, allowed the anchor to pull him under.

Fortunately, Jeongguk had experience with free diving--as well as scuba diving--so he had a decent amount of time to find a way out of the chains, before he'd inevitably run out of oxygen and begin to drown.

He looked around for anything that could be of use to him and, at first, he found nothing, until he eventually spotted something shiny and silver in the sand, just a few yards in front of him.

Assuming it to be the pistol he dropped only moments ago, Jeongguk grabbed a hold of the anchor he'd been chained to and proceeded to bunny hop his way across the ocean floor with it, in order to get to said pistol.

Once he was close enough, he dropped the anchor and steadily gripped the gun in both hands, before he aimed for the chain between his ankles.

"Please, don't let me shoot my foot," Jeongguk grumbled beneath the water and, with another pull of the trigger, the chain was popping apart and Jeongguk was once again a free man.

He resurfaced with a desperate gasp for air a few seconds later, but by that point, the boat was too far gone for Cordell & Curtis to even notice.

So Jeongguk swam toward the cooler that was still floating in the water--much like a buoy--just a few feet away from him, and he held on tight as he focused on figuring out a way to get back to shore.

**\---**

"Okay, guys..." Taehyung breathed, after he jogged up the steps of the yacht to reach the kitchen, where the head chef, Hoseok, and his husband, Jimin, were busy preparing breakfast for Namjoon. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck, honey," Jimin wished him sincerely. "Don't lose your nerve at the last minute."

"He doesn't need his nerve. Ten to one, the guy doesn't even show up," Hoseok bet.

"Why do you say that?" Taehyung asked curiously, as he grabbed a cool bottle of water from the fridge.

"Because that's his nature," Hoseok replied simply.

"What the hell do you know about his nature?"

"Oh, that's right. Defend that inconsiderate bastard and attack your friends who love you. Go ahead, I've got no feelings," Hoseok said sarcastically.

Taehyung shook his head at that. "No--I'm just saying, you don't know anything about my marriage..."

"Well, I've _heard_ enough," Hoseok muttered, sparing a glance over at Jimin, who hummed in agreement.

"Do I comment on _your_ love life?" Taehyung asked them rhetorically, as he glanced back & forth between the two.

"You could," Hoseok shrugged, "if I didn't happen to be the most fortunate guy in the world."

He smiled over at Jimin, who giggled fondly in response, "get out of here," with a hint of redness to his cheeks that Taehyung would've found adorable, had it been any other day.

"I just want you to have the same kind of happiness me & Jimin thank God for every day of our lives. Apparently this makes me some kind of hideous, deranged animal."

"You just make it sound like I never meant anything to him..." Taehyung replied sadly.

"All I said was the guy has a tendency to miss a lot of appointments..."

**\---**

As it turned out, Hoseok was right.

Jeongguk was late to their getting divorced in Key West, and Taehyung wasn't necessarily surprised, but even so, he was positively _fuming_.

"I'll give him a few more minutes, Mr. McCintry," the attorney spoke to Jeongguk's lawyer directly on the right side of the room, while Taehyung sat beside his own lawyer on the left, "but if he's not here by a quarter past, I'll be forced to award everything to Mr. Kim, by default."

"I'm gonna kill him," Taehyung mumbled.

"Do you wanna go to prison?" his lawyer hummed flatly.

"If it gets me out of Florida," he joked.

"Honey, _Florida_ didn't ruin your life. _You_ did," she said bluntly, "you married a guy for the sex, and then expected him to be smart."

"Maybe he had car trouble..." Mr. McCintry suggested on a whim.

"Car trouble...?" Taehyung stared at the older man with a blank expression.

"Yeah. You know... car trouble..." he shrugged, to which Taehyung gave a brief laugh, before the fake smile immediately fell from his face.

"He'd have to _own_ a car," Taehyung replied, "which he couldn't even if he wanted to because he has no _money_. He has no _credit_. He has no clue how to behave like a responsible adult! Which is why I can't get a loan because _everything_ is in _our_ name!"

Taehyung laughed again, before he continued to exasperatedly vent, "I can't even pay for school and finish my degree, which is what I was doing in the first place, before I got dragged down here on spring break!"

Then, he quietly added, "but like you said, the _sex_ was really... really, _really_ great," and he sighed sadly, but after a moment of awkward silence, he was abruptly exploding again. "Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to get divorced by yourself?!"

As if on cue, the door was swinging open and then slamming shut, after Jeongguk _swam all the way to shore_ , then _sprinted barefoot all the way from the beach_ ,only to end up being late anyway.

As Taehyung and the three lawyers stared back at him with expectant looks, Jeongguk held an index finger out, silently asking them to wait a moment, as he doubled over and attempted to catch his breath.

"Oh, my _God_..." Taehyung frustratedly shook his head.

"Your Honor," Jeongguk began as he stood upright. "This is a _big_ mistake! This man and I still love each other..."

He looked directly at Taehyung as he said, "don't do this, Tae. Look, I know I messed up, alright?" he said sincerely. "But I'm willing to change in _any_ area that you feel needs work. I want to make you happy... I'll do _anything_... I-I'll see a counselor..."

Taehyung swallowed thickly at that, as Jeongguk had always been so adamant in refusing to talk to any sort of professional about the issues they'd been having.

"Will you come to Chicago with me, like you promised?" Taehyung asked him, with the slightest twinkle in his pretty, brown eyes, that had Jeongguk hoping he was willing to change his mind about the divorce.

Chicago just wouldn't do, however.

Not when Jeongguk felt that he was _so close_ to finding the Dowry.

"Could be--I mean, that could work," Jeongguk replied hesitantly, causing the twinkle in Tae's eyes to disappear. "I'll _definitely_ see the counselor..." he offered.

"Mr. Jeon," Taehyung's lawyer spoke up for him when his jaw set tight in anger once more. "I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to inform you that under Florida law, you and this man have been divorced for the last fifty or sixty seconds."

Jeongguk immediately glanced down at his watch, and he gaped upon discovering that she was right.

"Moreover, as you were not present at the time of the proceedings," the woman continued with a condescending smirk, "he got everything."

Jeongguk didn't care about that, though.

"We're divorced...?" he asked in a voice just above a whisper.

"I'm afraid so," his own lawyer answered with a sympathetic expression.

"W-Why?" Jeongguk asked Taehyung, and his voice was shaking, but his gaze remained cold and hurt, as he tried his best to refrain from shedding any tears.

Taehyung's lips parted, and his brows furrowed sadly, as he could feel his own heartstrings tearing, just as Jeongguk could.

"Excuse me..." Taehyung whispered, before he gathered his things, made a beeline for the door, and rushed out of the building.

"Wait, Tae!!" Jeongguk shouted after him, making the lawyers cringe at the volume of his voice, as he ran after Taehyung and eventually caught up with him outside. "I gotta tell you what happened!! Tae!! We found it!! Me and Jin!! About a hundred yards off the reef, right where we always said she'd be!!"

"Prove it," Taehyung said with a stoic expression, as he reluctantly turned to face his ex-husband.

"Anybody got a pen, pencil?! Some paper?! _Anything_?!" Jeongguk called out to the people around them, who either shook their heads, stared at him like he was insane, or both.

Taehyung just rolled his eyes and said, "your uselessness is epic," before he grabbed a notepad and a pencil from his messenger bag for Jeongguk to use.

"Alright," Jeongguk disregarded that statement, as he opened up the notepad, and began to sketch out the partial family crest he'd found on the bottom of the dinner plate.

"Jin and I are diving..." he said, standing at Taehyung's side so he could watch him draw it out, "and I come across this plate--dinner plate--about yay big... it's plain white, but _this_ was stamped on the back in blue."

He handed the drawing over once he was finished, quietly saying, "it's the Vangor family crest, Tae..." making Taehyung's lips part in wonder. "You were right all along. You were right before _anybody_."

"Where did you find this??" Taehyung shook his head in confusion.

"A hundred yards off the reef," Jeongguk repeated with a fervent nod.

"Jeongguk, oh, my _God_..." he breathed in astonishment.

"That's what I'm saying!" he beamed, leading Taehyung to subconsciously begin to smile as well.

"So where's the plate?" he asked curiously.

"Well... I don't have it on me this minute," Jeongguk confessed.

"Where do you have it?"

"It's back there," he gestured toward the beach with a thumb over his shoulder.

"Wow..." Taehyung pursed his lips in response, before he simply turned around and began to walk away from him again.

"I know what you're thinking, Tae," Jeongguk continued to follow him. "But I swear to _God_ , it's the truth. You can ask Jin!"

"Okay," Taehyung shrugged. "Where is he?"

"Well, he's back there, too--"

"I can't _believe_ you would _dangle this_ _in front of me_ ," Taehyung shook his head in disappointment yet again. "I can't believe it."

"You really think I'd _lie_ about this??"

"Why not?" Taehyung scoffed. "You're a liar."

"Well, this is an inappropriate time to dwell on that--"

"I can draw this picture, too," Taehyung said as-a-matter-of-factly, stopping in his tracks to hold the drawing up.

"Tae, I'm _telling you_... we solved a _three hundred year old mystery_ yesterday! Alright??" Jeongguk asked. "Now, married or not, if we don't go after that ship, it's gonna _haunt us_ _for the rest of our lives_ and you _know it_!"

"I wasted _eight years of my life_ on this _bullshit_!" Taehyung pushed past him to keep walking. "I'm going back to Chicago! I'm gonna get my Ph.D., and I'm gonna spend the rest of my life teaching, reading, and writing books! And somewhere in there, I'm gonna meet myself an _intelligent_ , _successful_ man, who can get through an entire conversation without using the word " _definitely_ "!"

"First of all," Jeongguk began defensively, causing Taehyung to turn on his heel and fix him with a glare. "I hardly ever say that anymore... and when are you gonna stop selling this crap about going back to school? You want history? It's under the ocean, baby."

Taehyung rolled his eyes, but couldn't bring himself to meet Jeongguk's any longer.

"What, are you telling me you wanna spend the rest of your life in some dark room, taking notes and writing books about what some old prick in another dark room cooked up in his head about things that _you_ have actually _seen_ , and _touched_ , and _pulled out of the sand with your own hands_??"

Taehyung still didn't answer, so Jeongguk answered for him.

"Bullshit."

With that, Taehyung feigned a grin as he told Jeongguk, "I'm so glad we're not married anymore."

"Where are you gonna get the tuition money, anyway?"

"That's the best part! By selling the boat," he answered. "By selling _my_ _boat_ , which belongs to _me_. Used to belong to _us_ , but you _missed the divorce_ , so now it belongs to _me_. I'm gonna fix it up, I'm gonna sell it, and I'm gonna-- _what_??" Taehyung snapped, as Jeongguk just kept shaking his head.

"This is hard to say..."

"What is??"

"The boat caught fire and sank..." Jeongguk rushed out with a timid purse of his lips, at which point Taehyung was quick to turn on his heel and walk away, yet again.

However, Jeongguk called after him, "you act like this is totally _my_ fault!"

So Taehyung immediately turned to walk back toward him, with his fists clenched at his sides, and a deep-set furrow to his brows.

"Oh, come on, Tae. You're not gonna hit me," Jeongguk shook his head with a small laugh, right before Taehyung drew a fist back and punched Jeongguk straight in the temple, leaving a deep gash near the tail of his brow, where Taehyung's wedding ring dug into his skin.


	3. two

"You need help," Hoseok told Taehyung seriously.

"You are _not_ my mother," he sighed.

"You're right," Hoseok nodded. "I guess maybe I act like your mother sometimes because I never _had one_."

"Easy, Hobi, easy," Jimin reached a hand out to squeeze his shoulder.

"Okay, look, the main thing is we get away from Key West," Taehyung said. "The second Jeongguk lays eyes on this boat, he's gonna be onboard in ten minutes. Trust me."

"What do you mean?" Hoseok's brows furrowed in confusion. "You told him you're working here??"

"No. Are you kidding??"

"Then, I don't get it..."

"He needs money, Hobi," Taehyung replied, as if it was obvious. "Another boat, new equipment-- _everything_ \--and I seriously doubt he's gonna squeeze another dime out of that _Bugs Bunny_."

"Bugs Bunny...?"

"Yeah, you know, the rapper guy we had that fight about."

"You mean _Bigg Bunny Deenz_?"

"Yeah."

"Bigg Bunny Deenz is Guk's investor?" Hoseok asked, but it sounded like a statement more so than a question.

" _Yeah_."

"Deenz is a _very_ dangerous guy..." he said with a look of genuine concern, but his expression changed completely when he added, "although, I did like that one song he had, "Call Me Thumper." That was some funny shit."

"Anyway--" Taehyung shook his head at that.

"But I don't get it, has Guk ever even _met_ Namjoon??"

" _No_! But he _will_!Don't you understand??" Taehyung took a deep breath, as he felt quite exasperated, before he calmly continued. "He is a genius at exactly three things."

He counted out each of those things on his fingers, "treasure salving, finding money for treasure salving, and... one other thing..."

"What other thing??" Hoseok & Jimin simultaneously asked, leading Taehyung to glance down at his fingers and shiver a little bit at the intrusive thought of Jeongguk's.

"I don't wanna talk about it," he said.

Then, he rushed out of the kitchen with pink cheeks, before they could get a chance to question him further.

**\---**

"I take it they didn't kill you," Seokjin nonchalantly greeted Jeongguk, around a sip of his beer, after the younger man joined him within their favorite seaside bar in Key West.

"No," he answered, taking the seat beside him, before sarcastically adding, "but thanks for your help."

"How do you plan to get another boat?"

Jeongguk shook his head at that with a pained expression. 

"I can't think about this right now, Jin..." he stared down at the gold ring on his finger, as he'd taken to clasping his hands together on the bar top, "I just got divorced..."

"May I make a suggestion?"

" _No_."

"You see that big yacht lying offshore?" Jin asked anyway, making Jeongguk sigh.

"Nah, which one?"

"The owner is Namjoon Kim."

"So what?"

"I only mentioned it 'cause he's worth _seven billion dollars_ ," Jin shrugged, taking another sip of his beer, while Jeongguk's lips parted in wonder and his eyes twinkled with interest.

**\---**

"And just to let you know, I'm back onboard... _obviously_ ," Taehyung flushed red, as he carefully placed a tray of lunch on the marble table in front of Namjoon. "So whenever you want to weigh anchor is _great_."

"Thank you," Namjoon nodded graciously.

"So should I tell the captain?" Tae asked him curiously. "Ready to weigh anchor? Push off?"

"Actually, no," Namjoon answered, leading Taehyung to purse his lips out of irritation behind the billionaire's back. "My daughter, Gemma, is joining us today, and I said I would wait here for her."

So Taehyung wore a fake smile once more, and threw in a pleased laugh for good measure, before he sighed, "oh, _great_!" Then, he rushed out, "when is she coming, where is she coming from, and how far away is she? How _great_!"

Namjoon raised a suspicious brow at his steward, but he let it go, in order to explain how, "I sent the chopper to Miami... but she could be anywhere."

"That is _so funny_ that you would wait in Key West for her, when she's coming by chopper," Taehyung thought aloud, keeping the smile on his face, so as to not appear as though he was upset with his boss. 

"Is it?"

"Well, just because the helicopter could just, you know, meet the boat _anywhere_ ," Taehyung shrugged. "I mean, _anywhere at all_. That's what's so _incredibly great_ about helicopters."

"She wants to do some shopping," Namjoon shrugged as well, so Taehyung reluctantly chose to zip it for the time being and head back downstairs to the crew's cabin.

Before he could descend the steps, however, Namjoon spoke again.

"What do you do, Tae?" he asked, earning a confused glance from Taehyung as he turned to face him once more.

"I'm the... the new steward," he answered, to which Namjoon nodded understandingly.

Then, he clarified, "but what do you _really_ do?"

"What makes you think I do anything besides stewarding?" Taehyung asked curiously. "Stewing? Stewarding? _Stewarding_ ," he nodded with a brief, self-deprecating sigh.

Namjoon hummed in amusement. "My infallible, lifelong instinct for sizing people up."

"Have you sized me up?" Taehyung asked with a timid bite of his lower lip.

"Not quite," Namjoon smiled fondly when Taehyung managed to smile again upon hearing that. 

It was the first time he'd seen the younger man wear a genuine grin since his return aboard the yacht that morning.

"You don't mind the work, but you're not here for long. You have a deep, but not entirely unclouded, love for the sea. You perform your duties with superlative efficiency and ease, suggestive of someone expending approximately _one-tenth_ of his available brain power."

Taehyung felt warm with the unexpected appraisal.

"So what do you do with the remaining ninety percent, when you're not getting divorced?" Namjoon asked him then. "I hope I'm not being too personal."

"No, n-not at all..." Taehyung shook his head. "It's just been a crazy couple of years..."

**\---**

When the blades of a helicopter's propeller could suddenly be heard whirring overhead, through the open doors and windows of the bar, Seokjin spared a casual glance outside from his seat.

"That's probably his helicopter," he said, in regards to the billionaire he'd mentioned a few moments ago. "His daughter is supposed to be arriving today. The whole town is buzzing with excitement."

With that, Jeongguk seemed to perk up a bit, and he craned his head toward the doors as well. 

The helicopter sounded as though it was heading toward the beach, just as Jin had suggested. 

So Jeongguk immediately stood from the barstool, in order to follow the aircraft down to the harbor, before he watched it promptly touch down on the deck of a yacht--the _Precious Gem_ \--that was floating several yards away from shore.

With his target now acquired, Jeongguk walked the length of one of several docks, found a few inflatable motorboats that were moored at the end of it, and hot-wired one of them, in order to catch up to the yacht.

**\---**

"Hello, my baby," Namjoon cooed, pressing a kiss to his daughter's forehead, before she leaned in to hug him.

"Daddy!" Gemma cheered happily.

"Pleasant flight?" he presumed.

"Uh huh!" she nodded. Then, as she pulled away, she asked, "so, um, is this the whole boat?"

"Yes...?"

"Oh! _So cute_ ," Gemma beamed. "I can't believe we're at sea!"

"Well, technically, we're at anchor," Namjoon politely corrected her.

"Oh! Okay, wait, so that just means that the _anchor_... is in the _water_... right?"

"Yes..." Namjoon nodded affirmatively.

"Yes! Okay, because I totally wanna learn all the sea terms."

"And so you shall, my darling. Have fun shopping."

"Thank you, daddy," she chirped, as she followed a pair of stewards out toward the speedboat that had pulled up to the back of the yacht to take her to shore, shortly after she'd arrived on deck.

"Do try to keep it under fifty thousand..." Namjoon requested.

"What?" she asked with an amused expression, to which he just sighed and shrugged it off.

"Supper's at seven," he told her instead.

"Oh! I was supposed to meet some friends in Key Biscayne, but I'm gonna try to get out of it," she assured him, as the stewards helped her step down into the speedboat.

"Invite them aboard, if you'd like. Just let me know."

"Okay, I will," she nodded, as she settled back upon the seat and the driver prepared to leave. "Love you!" she hummed sweetly.

As the boat was eventually speeding off toward the shore, however, a sudden breeze blew her sun hat from her head and carried it away.

"My hat!!" Gemma gasped, catching the attention of Jeongguk, who was pretty certain he'd just found his ticket onto the yacht. 

"Can you turn the boat around?? Thank you!" Gemma requested of the driver, as she watched her hat drift through the air.

"Okay! But we're never gonna catch it!" he told her, right before Jeongguk went zipping right past them in the motorboat, the sound of which scared Gemma half to death.

Nevertheless, she watched curiously, as Jeongguk quickly gained on the hat, then used the rippling waves that trailed behind her speedboat to his advantage. 

He sped up and jumped the wave, which sent him flying several feet into the air, whereupon he caught Gemma's sunhat and fell back into the boat, with a harsh smack of his head and ribs against the siding.

"Ah..." Jeongguk winced, as he rolled onto his back. Then, he raised the hat toward the sky and shouted triumphantly, " _WOO_!!"

"Oh, my _God_ ," Gemma all but drooled after watching the scene unfold, which led the driver to give her a wary look as they sped toward Jeongguk.

As he became distracted, however, the driver ended up driving the speedboat straight over the front of the motorboat, thus popping the inflatable material and making Gemma exclaim, "oh, my God!! You _killed_ _him_!!"

**\---**

"Ow. Ow. Ow."

"What in God's name happened??" Namjoon, as well as a paramedic, rushed toward the back of the yacht, after they'd received word from security that someone aboard had been injured.

A group of stewards, including Gemma's driver, lifted Jeongguk up out of the speedboat and carefully laid him down on the deck.

"Oh! Daddy, this man _saved my life_!" Gemma exaggerated, as the medic rushed to Jeongguk's aid.

"Sir? Sir, I really don't think you should get up, until I make sure--"

Completely disregarding the medic's warning, as well as the fact that his head was actively bleeding, Jeongguk slowly but surely sat up on his elbows, in order to hold Gemma's hat out toward her.

"Is this your hat?" he panted.

" _Yes_ ," Gemma giggled nervously, as she reached out to accept it from him. "That was the _bravest_ _thing_ I've ever seen in my _life_! Sir, thank you _so much_. Thank you."

So Jeongguk offered her a charming smile, while the medic guided him down onto his back, in order to clean the blood from his face.

"You'll be okay," she assured him after a moment. "Just a little bump on the head. Try not to move around too much for the next few hours."

"But I gotta go back to town..." Jeongguk replied.

"Oh, I _really_ don't advise it," the medic shook her head.

"Oh..." Jeongguk's brows furrowed and, as he pretended to think over his options, Gemma gave her father an expectant look. "Well, now what am I gonna do...?"

Namjoon quickly took the hint from his daughter and spoke up, "may I suggest a hot shower, some clean clothes, and cocktails at 6:30?"

Jeongguk looked up at the older man with a genuine look of pleasant surprise. "Okay..." he nodded graciously. "Thanks..."

"Take him to the Saint Regis," Namjoon ordered the stewards to bring Jeongguk to the 5 star resort in Miami, and the younger man couldn't help but feel like his luck was beginning to turn again.

**\---**

"Well, Mr. Deenz, I'm always delighted to welcome an entrant into my field, whether it be on land or sea," Yoongi Min--Jeongguk's old mentor--said, as he led Bigg Bunny, Curtis, and Cordell into his office. 

"But I feel I need to warn you," he began, taking a seat at his desk, which led Bigg Bunny to sit in the chair directly across from it. "There's no way of getting away from treasure once it's fastened itself on your mind."

"I want you to find me The Queen's Dowry."

Yoongi gave a curt laugh at that. "Well, now, Bunny--"

" _Bigg_ Bunny."

"Well, that's an emerald of a different color, isn't it?"

"Cordell," Bigg Bunny held his palm out expectantly, so Cordell reached into his pocket for the shard of a plate they stole from Jeongguk, right before (they thought) they killed him.

Cordell handed it over to Bigg Bunny, who handed it up to Yoongi, in turn.

"This is a piece of the plate that we found in the Bahamas, off of Topsail Cay," he took all the credit for Jeongguk's discovery. "Now, if you turn it over, you may notice that it has the Vangor family crest stamped on it."

"That's nice..." Yoongi nodded, as he gave the shard a brief once over, "but who the hell are the Vangors, and why the hell should I give a rat's ass about their family crest?"

**\---**

"To the _Aurelia_!"

Taehyung immediately froze in place on the deck, at the sound of his ex-husband's all-too-familiar voice--announcing a toast to the sunken ship full of treasure they'd spent nearly a decade of their lives searching for--as Jeongguk sat at a rounded dining table with Gemma and Namjoon, waiting to be served dinner.

"Hey, babe!" Jeongguk casually greeted Taehyung, who abruptly set the tray full of food down, and proceeded to (quite literally) _toss_ the three dinner plates onto the table.

Needless to say, the plates were shattered, their food was flung across the deck, and Taehyung was absolutely furious.

"What are you doing here?" Jeongguk smirked at him then, clearly amused by the fact that he was capable of bringing that much rage out of his ex, simply by being in his presence.

"Have a good dinner!" Taehyung wore his typically fake smile, as he dismissed himself with a sarcastic little, "bon appétit, everybody!" and a frustrated shout on his way back down to the crew's cabin.

As Gemma watched Taehyung leave with a confused furrow to her brows, Namjoon raised his glass to take a sip of his champagne.

Then, he looked up at Jeongguk, whose smile never seemed to fade.

"I take it you've met."


	4. three

"So Tae and I first hooked up when we worked for this guy named Yoongi Min," Jeongguk--ever the open book he was--explained to Namjoon and Gemma, as they sat drinking with one another in the cabin.

Taehyung refrained from rolling his eyes at this, while he carried in a tray of bite sized wine cakes, and offered one to each of them. 

"He's kind of a local character, you know--big talker, lot of tall tales--a lovable old sea dog."

"You should live to be so eccentric," Taehyung muttered when he offered the tray to Jeongguk last, as he had a feeling his ex would purposely take a long time to select which cake he wanted just to piss him off, and that's exactly what he did.

"Ooh," Jeongguk tilted his head, taking his time in deciding he wanted a piece from the middle of the plate. "Thank you, babe," he cooed around a bite of the cake, making Taehyung sigh aloud as he marched over to the bar Gemma was sitting at, in order to set the tray down.

"I do wish you would sit down..." Namjoon requested of his steward, as he felt the tension in the room could be cut with a knife.

"Yoongi Min is the most respected and successful treasure salvor in the world," Taehyung said, on his way over to one of the plush chairs that faced the matching couch Namjoon sat upon.

"Nobody said he wasn't," Jeongguk chimed in from the chair adjacent to Taehyung's.

So Tae looked over at him and said, "when Guk met Min, he was repairing outboards and lawn mowers, during the brief intervals he wasn't getting _fired for surfing_."

"Two times, Tae," Jeongguk held up a peace sign. "I got fired _two times_."

"Min picked him out of a puddle of motor oil and suntan lotion," Taehyung told Namjoon, "gave him a job, a vocation, taught him everything he knows."

So Jeongguk gave Tae a knowing look, which made him swallow thickly, before he added, "almost. _Anyway_ , then they had a falling-out over this cannon we found--"

"On our day off," Jeongguk interjected, making Tae's jaw momentarily clench in annoyance, before he continued.

"--from the _Aurelia_ , three miles east of Vero Beach. Which the court ruled was _Min's_ because we _borrowed his equipment_ ," Taehyung glared at his ex-husband once more, suggesting to Namjoon that the equipment was actually _stolen_.

"The sea is all attached, right?" Gemma randomly asked, distracting the rest of them from their conversation, as they glanced back at her with concerned expressions.

"To what, darling?" Namjoon inquired.

"Well, Kerry and Vivante grabbed a plane for the Yucatán, and I thought maybe we could hook up with them, instead of just sailing around doing nothing."

With that, Namjoon looked to Taehyung & Jeongguk, and he politely requested that they, "tell us about the treasure."

Clearly feeling as though it was his time to shine, Jeongguk set his glass down on the table between his seat & Taehyung's, sat up straight, and began to tell the story of the _Aurelia_.

The parts of it they knew, at least.

"July 31st, 1715... a hurricane sinks the _entire_ Spanish treasure fleet off the coast of Florida," he set the scene, "including her flagship, the _Capitana_ , which--according to it's manifest--carried The Queen's Dowry; Forty chests of jewelry and gold crowns, specially crafted in the Orient for the new queen of Spain."

"When we say _jewels_ ," Taehyung excitedly cut in, unknowingly earning a fond grin from Jeongguk in doing so, "we mean Indian diamonds, Burmese rubies, and Colombian emeralds the size of your _fist_."

"Anyway..." Jeongguk stared at him for a moment, before he said, "we should probably start with what Tae and I got so excited about on our honeymoon."

"Well, I think we can all guess," Namjoon light-heartedly joked as a way to hopefully cut the tension and, with the way the pair shared a laugh in response, he figured he must've done a pretty good job.

"After we lost the court case, we decided to go backpacking in Spain for two weeks," Taehyung said, "...ended up spending two years in the Archives of the Indies in Seville."

"You spent your _honeymoon_ in a _library_...?" Gemma asked incredulously.

This led Taehyung to cross one of his knees over the other, and Jeongguk to subconsciously lick his lips, as they were both pleasantly reminded of how they _actually_ spent their honeymoon;

_"Ohh, God!" Taehyung had brazenly moaned, clutching Jeongguk's biceps with white knuckles, as he was being pounded into the desk of the room of archives they'd locked themselves away inside._

_"I love you!" Jeongguk panted, with tiny beads of sweat built up along his hairline, and a passionate furrow to his brows._

_"Oh, baby, I love you, too!" Taehyung cried, when Jeongguk abruptly grabbed a hold of his legs, guided his ankles up onto his shoulders, and picked up the pace._

"Where every known record, official transcript, and royal decree relating to the treasure fleets has been kept for centuries," Jeongguk explained the significance of the archives in question, distracting Taehyung from the steamy daydream.

"A-At first it was just for fun, but then we decided to look up the _Aurelia_ because of the cannon we found in Florida, and it sort of became our pet project," Taehyung smiled nostalgically, "especially when we learned the captain was an eighteen-year-old kid named Sebastian Vangor--"

"--who we also discovered was the illegitimate son of Captain General Don Juan Ubilla of the _Capitana_ , and his Mexican mistress, Francesca Vangor," Jeongguk nodded. "We thought it was an interesting sidebar, and we really didn't think much more of it, until _Tae_ found this very obscure Spanish book, published in 1905, titled, _The Vangors: An 18th Century Family_."

"It was a collection of letters, actually," Taehyung politely corrected him, with a slight flutter to his heart upon hearing Jeongguk outwardly acknowledge the fact that he was the one who made the discovery.

"So why is this important?" Jeongguk asked rhetorically, as he stood from his seat and slowly began to pace the floor between Taehyung & Namjoon, "because the Vangors controlled the mule train that transported the Dowry over the mountains, from the Pacific to the Caribbean, and then loaded it onto Spanish galleons in Veracruz."

"So I'm reading this, and all of a sudden I start hyperventilating," Taehyung chuckled softly, "because there it is, right in front of me, in Ubilla's last letter to Francesca. He wrote, " _my faith in the_ Aurelia _, is that she is swift, and light, and can outrun the storms we will most certainly encounter. But it is my faith in Sebastian that knows no bounds. Our son is good, and strong, and wiser than this old fool who leaves your bed more and more reluctantly. The glory of the Spanish Crown rests in his capable hands._ ""

"So... Ubilla pulled a switch," Namjoon concluded with an astonished expression, "with the Vangors' help."

"Mhm!" Jeongguk hummed affirmatively, and Taehyung's smile grew wider, upon witnessing the delightful sparkle of Jeongguk's eyes in that moment.

"They moved The Queen's Dowry from the _Capitana_ to the supply ship," Namjoon ran his fingers through his hair, as he sat up a bit straighter, and Taehyung couldn't help but feel excited by the fact that his boss was clearly just as interested in this story as they were.

"Because...?" Gemma surprised the three of them, when she joined her father's side on the coach, with an enthusiastic expression of her own.

"The _Capitana_ was already way overloaded with treasure," Jeongguk answered, "so it was very heavy, and very slow, and it wasn't just _hurricanes_ they had to worry about. It was _British warships_ , _French privateers_ , you name it."

"About the time Guk and I were ready to leave," Taehyung spoke up again, "we found this article about a Spanish sailor, who was rescued off a deserted island, after being shipwrecked for _three years_."

"Off Topsail Cay?" Namjoon guessed, considering Jeongguk found the plate shard just off the coast of the Bahamian island.

"Right," Jeongguk nodded. "1718."

"Three years after the hurricane," Taehyung nodded as well.

"A Dutch frigate had come to grief on the shoals off of Topsail Cay and, while waiting for the tide to rise, they saw what they thought was an old man paddling out on a log."

"Only he _wasn't_ an old man," Taehyung explained. "He was _twenty-one years old_... looked like Tom Hanks in that movie. What was that movie?"

"Oh! I know!" Gemma immediately raised her hand. " _Cast Away_!"

"Yes!" Jeongguk nodded.

"He told the Dutch captain his name was _Raphael Serrano_ ," Taehyung continued, "of the tobacco ship, _Francesca_."

Gemma audibly gasped. "As in _mother of Sebastian_!!"

"Yes," Taehyung grinned encouragingly.

"Exactly," Jeongguk nodded once more. "Now, he said he had struck the same reef and sunk, in just about thirty feet of water."

"Wow..." Gemma breathed, "you guys must really like treasure."

"Yes," Namjoon said. "I mean, it's _very_ impressive, but it's still _thin_..." he half-joked, in regards to the amount of money the treasure would most likely be worth if they were to locate it.

"Oh, my God," Gemma rolled her eyes indifferently, earning a fond grin from Namjoon, as she continued to pleasantly remind him of her mother.

"Only _Francesca_? She didn't sink off Topsail Cay," Jeongguk shook his head. "She sank off the coast of _Veracruz_ in 1708, with _all_ hands, including her _captain_... _Raphael Serrano_."

"Wait, I don't get it..." Gemma tilted her head at that.

"Neither did we," Taehyung assured her, "until we discovered that the _Francesca_ had been owned by the Vangor family."

"So what do we know about Sebastian Vangor?" Jeongguk asked rhetorically. "Well, we know for a fact that he survived a hurricane, a shipwreck, starvation, _pirates_ \--most likely--and then he _lied about it_. Now, why _lie_ about being apart of the _greatest treasure fleet in history_? Unless you're sitting on top of a huge secret. A secret that _nobody_ \--not even the _king of Spain_ \--knew existed."

Jeongguk glanced over at Taehyung then, who surprisingly didn't look as though he wanted to kill him in that moment, before he looked back to Namjoon & Gemma.

"Well, I can think of only _one_ reason..." Jeongguk said seriously, " _honor_... because his father had entrusted him with the most _precious_ _gifts_ mankind had _never_ seen. He _had_ to survive, to fulfill the privilege Ubilla had bestowed on him that fateful day in Veracruz; _That's_ why he lied... and _that's_ why he lived..."

Then, Jeongguk looked at Taehyung once more and said, "and that's why _we_ _can't give up_..."

With that, Taehyung's smile faded and, as he held the eye contact for a moment, he thought to himself, _damn you and your starry eyes_.

"Sebastian Vangor is the unsung hero of an entire nation," Jeongguk declared, "and we intend to prove it."

"So what happened to him?" Gemma asked curiously.

"Sebastian?"

"He was taken off the Dutch ship in Martinique and died a week later, of consumption," Taehyung explained.

"Oh..." Gemma frowned, "he drank too much?"

"No," Namjoon politely told her, " _consumption_ , darling... as in _tuberculosis_. Not to be confused with _consuming_... as in _guzzling_."

"Oh, man... I'm _so_ dumb," Gemma shook her head self-deprecatingly.

Jeongguk laughed at that. "You wanna hear dumb? I used to think that it meant he died _having sex_... as in _consummating_."

Gemma managed an amused smile upon hearing that. "You did?"

"Yeah," Jeongguk nodded.

"You did...?" Taehyung raised an incredulous brow at him.

"Yeah."

"Really?" Namjoon's brows raised.

"Mhm," Jeongguk hummed around another sip of his drink. " _Anyway_... that's our idea. Well, it's _Tae's_ ,mostly. He was always the brains of the operation," he added sincerely, which earned him another briefly appreciative glance from his ex-husband, despite the circumstances.

"Well, Gemma? What do you think?" Namjoon asked then, as Jeongguk sent Taehyung a flirtatious wink, to which he immediately looked away again.

Once he was pretty sure Jeongguk was no longer looking at him, however, Taehyung spared another curious glance in his direction, and he felt his cheeks heating up with the blood that rushed to them when he caught himself doing so.

"You're asking _me_??" Gemma asked.

"A treasure hunt in the Bahamas? Or a month with Kerry and Vivante in the Yucatán?" Namjoon gave her an ultimatum.

So Gemma looked up at Taehyung, then over to Jeongguk, who wore another charming smile as she gave him a (not-so-subtle) once over.

"Will you teach me how to dive?" she asked.

"Yes, I will," Jeongguk nodded, which left Taehyung seeming pleasantly surprised by the relatively simple terms of their agreement.


	5. four

Jeongguk & Taehyung spent most of the following morning teaching Namjoon & Gemma about scuba diving.

Then, Seokjin joined them onboard around noon (with Namjoon's blessing, of course), via the speedboat that nearly killed Jeongguk, whereupon he introduced Jin as his diving partner.

Taehyung had been Jeongguk's diving partner, practically since the day they first met, and he felt he didn't really have the right to be jealous of Jeongguk's _new_ partner, considering it was _his_ idea to get divorced.

But even so, he couldn't help but feel a little bummed about it.

"Now, the island is basically triangular," Jeongguk explained, regarding Topsail Cay, as the yacht steadily approached the Bahamian island.

"You've got cliffs and breakers," he gestured to the left side, "harbor and town," he gestured to the right, "and beach," he concluded with a nod straight ahead. "I found the plate near the reef, just on the other side."

"But you don't have the exact coordinates?" Namjoon asked curiously, as they all stood together on the top deck of the boat.

"The exact position of the find is irrelevant," Seokjin said.

"Why?"

"We, uh... kinda left a marker," Jeongguk answered vaguely.

"We set the boat on fire, and then we sank it," Seokjin answered truthfully.

"But we would never do that to _your_ boat," Jeongguk quickly assured Namjoon.

"Nope. Just _my_ boat," Taehyung said, feigning a chipper smile, as usual.

" _Our_ boat," Jeongguk argued.

" _My_ boat."

" _Our_ _boat_."

" _My boat~_ ," Taehyung singsonged, before a gasp of excitement drew all of their attention toward Gemma.

"Hey! Did you know that this _entire island_ is owned by _Bigg Bunny Deenz_??" she gaped in astonishment.

"He _owns the whole island_??" Taehyung glared at Jeongguk for not telling him.

"Who?" Namjoon raised a brow at that.

"Big Bunny Deenz," Gemma repeated the name.

"Oh, yes, I remember," Namjoon nodded then. "Didn't he murder someone named _Fuzzy Dice_ or... _Pogo Stick_ or something?"

Gemma rolled her eyes, before explaining that, "his name was _Exta C_. You were _really_ close... and he was _totally_ acquitted," she said, in regards to Bigg Bunny.

"Well, it was difficult to secure a conviction because he _murdered all the witnesses_ ," Seokjin chimed in again, as-a-matter-of-factly.

"You are _really_ incredible, Guk," Taehyung muttered sarcastically, as he turned to jog down the steps to the main level of the yacht, with his ex-husband trailing close behind.

"Okay, so he owns the island. So what??" Jeongguk laughed. "He doesn't own the _water_."

Taehyung placed his hands on his hips when he turned around to ask, "and how's he gonna feel when we're hauling treasure up out of the water in front of his beach house?"

"Supportive...?" Jeongguk said after a moment of silence.

"I told you _not to get involved with him_!" Taehyung shook his head exasperatedly. "What if we need _food_ , or _fuel_ , or--or _flashlight batteries_??"

So Jeongguk took a confident step forward and reached his hands out to lightly massage at Taehyung's shoulders with his fingertips.

"Will you _relax_ , Tae?" he lowered the volume of his voice for only Taehyung to hear, making him swallow thickly due to their close proximity, but he sure tried his damndest not to let it show.

"It's _Aurelia_ ," Jeongguk added just as softly, and his grin only widened, at the sight of Taehyung's lips involuntarily turning upward in a smile of his own. "She's right around the corner... and she's all _ours_."

"Hey, guys!" Gemma called out to the pair from the middle of the steps, wiping any trace of a smile away from Tae's face, as he immediately backed away from Jeongguk's touch. "Come look at this boat! It's got these really big, um... _tubes_ going in the water off the back!"

With that, Taehyung & Jeongguk rushed toward the stairs, so Gemma quickly turned to lead the way back up to the top deck, whereupon they were met with the sight of a smaller boat, floating in the water just a few yards ahead.

"Anybody but me wanna spend a weekend in Paris with that boat?" Yoongi jokingly inquired from the deck of it, as he stared directly at the yacht.

"I think she's already taken," said a member of his crew, who'd been looking at the yacht as well, through the pair of binoculars he handed up to Yoongi in the next instant.

"What?" Yoongi's brows furrowed in confusion, as he raised them up to his eyes, in order to get a closer view of the people standing on the top deck. "Oh, you son of a--"

"-- _bitch_ ," Jeongguk cursed at the same time, after lowering a set of Namjoon's binoculars from his eyes.

When Jeongguk handed them over to Taehyung, he asked, "what's the matter?"

"It's _Min_!" Jeongguk called back to him, as he rushed over to the edge of the deck.

"What??" Taehyung's brows furrowed and, just to be sure, he raised the binoculars to take a look.

"What's happened?" Namjoon asked, as Jeongguk momentarily peered down into the ocean over the railing.

"I'm pretty sure Hell just froze over," Taehyung answered with a purse of his lips.

"THE _AURELIA_ 'S MINE, GODDAMN IT!!!" Jeongguk shouted toward Yoongi's boat, after spotting a grid system in the sand beneath the water.

"NOT IF I FIND HER FIRST!!!" Yoongi yelled back, earning the flip of a middle finger from Jeongguk, as he turned to join Tae's side near the others.

"Looks like he's only been here a day or two," Jeongguk said.

"How can you tell?" Namjoon tilted his head curiously.

"It's a full day's work to lay the grid," he answered assuredly.

Then, Gemma asked him, "wait, so what are they looking for?" with a rake of her teeth over her lower lip.

Jeongguk simply shook his head, however, as if to silently say he didn't have time to answer, before he quickly descended the steps to reach the lowest deck of the yacht, where their scuba gear was stored.

So Taehyung asked Gemma, "do you _really_ not know the answer to that??" out of disbelief, seeing as they hadalready discussed what they were looking for the night before.

"I--" Gemma looked to Namjoon for help, only to receive an expectant look from her father. " _Ugh_!" she shouted out of frustration. Then, she turned on her wedged heel to descend the steps as well.

"I'll go comfort her," Jin volunteered.

"No. You stay there," Taehyung stopped him, before he looked to Namjoon and said, "sir, I'm _so_ sorry, but she's gotta learn that there's better ways to get attention than acting like a dumbass."

"Like what?" Jin gave a curt laugh in response to that, earning a pointed look from Namjoon.

Meanwhile, at the back of the yacht, Jeongguk hauled one of the harnessed oxygen tanks overboard, put on a pair of goggles, then proceeded to dive in after it.

He pulled it on and slipped the regulator into his mouth, as he quickly dove deeper, in order to reach the grid Yoongi and his team set up.

Jeongguk hid behind the wreckage of his own sunken ship, as he realized some of Yoongi's divers were still underwater, preparing several explosives to blast the sand away and (hopefully) uncover pieces of the _Aurelia_ 's hidden treasure.

Once they returned to the surface, however, Jeongguk moved in closer to begin dismantling the grid as fast as he could.

"Ahoy there!" Namjoon called to Yoongi's boat from the top deck. "Good morning!"

"Morning to you!" Yoongi called back. "That's quite a bucket you got there!"

"Hello, Min!" Taehyung waved down to him with a half-smile, catching the older man a little off guard with his unexpected presence.

"Hey, gorgeous!" Yoongi waved back, despite the visible look of suspicion he wore.

"Small world, huh?!"

"Where's that good-for-nothing husband of yours?!"

" _Ex_ -husband!" Taehyung quipped with a smile.

"Congratulations!" Yoongi smirked in response.

"Find anything yet, Mr. Min?!" Namjoon asked curiously.

"Well, sir, we're just gonna set off some charges and take a look!" he replied honestly. "You might wanna ease back a ways, just in case we accidentally scratch your finish!"

"I'll tell the captain!" Namjoon nodded graciously.

"Let's blow some holes!" Yoongi called to his crew.

Then, Taehyung's gaze instinctively lowered to the clear blue water, where he could see the familiar shape of Jeongguk's figure moving along the ocean floor, causing his eyes to widen with fear.

"Oh, my God," he breathed.

"What?" Namjoon asked.

" _Delay,_ " Taehyung quietly panicked, as he turned to rush down the steps, " _delay_!"

So Jin looked over the edge of the boat, and his eyes widened as well, as he realized what was about to happen.

"Uh--excuse me!! Min?!" he called down to the other boat.

"Well, well, well! If it isn't the sidekick!" Yoongi teased him.

"I don't think of myself that way!" Jin shook his head. "I'm the lead character in my own story!"

**\---**

"Why does everyone I know think I'm hot, except the ones on this boat?" Gemma cried to a few stewards, down in the crew's cabin.

"We think you're hot!" one of them replied incredulously.

"Are you _kidding me_??" another asked.

"I know _I do_!" the third added, just as Taehyung finally reached the cabin.

"Gemma! I need your help. No time to explain," he said, as he reached for her hand.

"What do _you_ want?!" Gemma yanked her hand out of his grasp. "Some expert advice on how to be st- _stupid_?!"

"Oh," Taehyung frowned at that. "Look," he gestured to the three stewards sitting next to her. "See how dumb _they_ are?"

So Gemma craned her head and, with a sniffle, she answered, "yeah..."

"They can't help it," Taehyung shrugged. " _You_ can. The end! Let's go," he took her hand once more and, this time, she let him lead her out of the cabin and back up to the top deck.

He relayed his plan to her on the way up and, when they finally made it, he turned to face her once more.

"Okay. You're on," he gestured toward the end of the deck, with an encouraging flourish of his arm.

"Okay!" she giggled excitedly, before she jogged over to the railing and began to wave down at Yoongi and his men. "Hi!! I'm Gemma!"

Like moths to a flame, a majority of them moved toward the opposite end of their boat, just to be that much closer to her.

"That's Gemma Kim!" one of them shouted.

"Are you _serious_?!" another gaped and, normally, Taehyung would've felt pretty guilty exploiting his boss' daughter like that, but Gemma clearly didn't have a problem with it.

"Hi!" she giggled. "What are your names?!"

"I'm Happy!" the first replied.

"Oh!"

"I'm Jim!" the other answered.

"Hi! So did you all grow up on this boat?!" she asked, before she glanced down at the water and obliviously pointed out, "oh! Oh, my God! There's Jeongguk!!"

" _Gemma_!!" Taehyung, Seokjin, and Namjoon said in unison, just as they gave her matching looks of betrayal.

With that, Yoongi and his crew were made aware of the fact that Jeongguk had been tampering with their grid system.

"Bastard!!" Yoongi called him. "I'll get that little shit outta there myself!!"

As if on cue, a charge went off beneath the water, blasting sand up toward the surface, and making Jeongguk--as well as everyone on the yacht--shout out of surprise, as he was roughly pushed away from the grid with the force of it.

Luckily, he wasn't close enough to be seriously injured and, like a reward for managing to avoid being blown up, a rusty old sword came floating toward Jeongguk from the sandy cloud of debris.

"What the hell was that??" Hoseok asked, as he & Jimin joined one another on the lowest deck of the ship, upon hearing the blast of the explosive.

"WHO THE HELL SET OFF THAT CHARGE?!!" Yoongi snapped at his crew. "THERE'S A MAN DOWN THERE!!"

"He ripped up the grid! Nobody rips up the grid!" one of them said, with the detonator in his hand.

"If _anybody's_ gonna kill that boy, it's gonna be _me_!" Yoongi shook his head at the man's insolence.

"Okay," he said, handing the detonator over and accidentally setting off _another_ charge in the process.

Miraculously, Jeongguk wasn't blown up that time, either.

However, he _was_ blown several feet out of the water, leading him to instinctively ditch the scuba gear and launch the sword toward the yacht as quickly as he possibly could, before he inevitably came crashing down upon the deck of Yoongi's boat.

All of the wind was promptly knocked from Jeongguk's lungs, just as the blunt blade of the sword he threw pierced into the deck of the yacht, at which point Taehyung anxiously shouted, "GUK?!!"

Jeongguk coughed and groaned from the pain of his crash landing, but nevertheless, he rolled onto his side to assure Taehyung that he was okay.

"Hey, honey!!" he called back toward the yacht, earning whistles and cheers of approval from Hoseok & Jimin.

"You go, girl!!" Jimin proudly clapped, while Hoseok doubled over in a bout of pleasantly relieved laughter.

"Bravo!!" Namjoon shook his head in amazement. "Bravo!!"

"I'll be right over!!" Jeongguk grinned from all the praise, and he slowly but surely pushed himself back onto his feet, only to immediately be faced with Yoongi. "Oh, _hello_ , Min."

"Hello, Guk," Yoongi greeted him flatly. "Anything broken?" he asked.

So Jeongguk gave himself a quick once over.

"I don't think so," he shook his head.

"Good," Yoongi replied, right before he sucker punched Jeongguk's lights out.

" _GUKKIE_!!" Taehyung gasped, as they watched his body hit the deck once more.


	6. five

"It's difficult to maintain enthusiasm for your leadership when you keep getting beat up by that old man," Seokjin told Jeongguk later on that evening, after he'd been brought back onboard and checked over by the medic.

"He's fifty-six years old," Jeongguk shook his head, from where he stood in front of a shallow glass tankful of water, carefully brushing the sand away from the sword he'd found. "I can't just hit him."

"That's quite obvious!" Jin shouted over the noise of an airplane suddenly passing over.

Then, once the noise dissipated, Jeongguk asked, "was that a yellow and white _Cessna_ 206 seaplane?"

Seokjin gave him a wary look, as he wasn't entirely sure how Jeongguk could tell what kind of plane it was just from the sound of it, but he was correct.

"I would describe it more as banana and cream," Jin shrugged.

**\---**

"I still can't get over the way he just _came up out of the water_ like that," Hoseok said in amazement, standing at the stove searing scallops, as Jimin chopped vegetables at the counter behind him.

"I know!" Jimin shook his head, as if he couldn't believe it either, "and _holding the sword_?? And then he just makes this _totally perfect toss_ , and the sword ends up sticking _straight up in the deck_!" Jimin stabbed the wooden cutting board with the tip of his kitchen knife. "Amazing!"

"But it's more than just the sheer power of his raw sexuality," Hoseok said. "It's the totality of his emotional commitment to the task at hand."

"Yeah, it's the focus," Jimin nodded in agreement. "It's the focus."

"He sees it, he wants it, he goes after it, he gets it."

"He sure got me," Jimin jokingly smirked.

"Do you mind?!" Taehyung made the pair jump when he suddenly made his presence known.

"I'm sorry," Jimin rushed out.

"We're sorry," Hoseok said sincerely, and they both released a stressful sigh, as Taehyung turned to join everyone else on the main deck for dinner.

**\---**

After they'd all finished their meals, Namjoon raised his glass of red wine, leading the rest of the table to do the same.

"Here's to a wonderfully exciting first day, and to the safe landing of our glorious leader," he beamed.

"Hear, hear, Namjoon," Jeongguk nodded respectfully. "You the man."

"He meant _you_ , stupid," Taehyung mumbled under his breath, as Jeongguk took a sip from his glass.

"What?" Gemma looked up at him with a hurt expression.

"No-- _Guk_ , honey, _Guk_ ," Taehyung assured her that she wasn't the one he was talking about.

"Oh," she said with pink cheeks.

"There's port in the salon if anyone's interested," Namjoon added then, "and a wonderful selection of cigars, if anyone feels like ruining the evening for the rest of us," he laughed, "and cupcakes!"

"Are there any prostitutes?" Seokjin unabashedly asked.

"Sorry," Namjoon offered him a pursed-lipped smile in return, "but, no."

"Well, maybe we can call some."

"Oh, my God. Are you _serious_?" Gemma asked from the opposite side of the table.

"Pay him no attention, Gem," Jeongguk shook his head. "He's a provocateur."

"Okay, well we're not in _France_ right now," she replied. "We're in _America_."

Jeongguk smiled fondly in response to that, as Taehyung simply shrugged with a nod, as if to silently say she wasn't wrong.

Then, Taehyung said, "think I'm gonna head to bed--"

"Think that's it for me tonight--" Jeongguk said simultaneously, as they both unintentionally moved to stand from the table at the same time.

Seokjin fixed the pair with a smug grin around his next sip of wine, while Gemma & Namjoon curiously glanced up at them as well.

"That was a coincidence that we got up together," Taehyung quickly explained, "and that we're both going to bed because we're not going to bed _together_... obviously."

"Nope," Jeongguk sighed.

"Well, it's really none of our business..." Namjoon said.

"Nor is it even _interesting_ ," Seokjin added, as he stood from his seat as well.

"What Tae's trying to say is--" Jeongguk began.

"Goodnight," Jin finished his sentence with a respectful nod toward Namjoon, and a playful wink toward Gemma, before he moved to find his room in the guest cabin.

"Goodnight," Jeongguk nodded affirmatively. "Namjoon, great day. Gemma, sweet dreams," he bid them, before he turned to make his leave as well.

"Goodnight, sir," Taehyung said softly, "Gemma."

"Goodnight, Tae," Gemma smiled sweetly in return, to which he promptly turned to find his room, leaving her and Namjoon as the last ones at the table.

"I hope, Gemma..." Namjoon captured his daughter's attention, once everyone else was out of earshot, "that it hasn't been too dull for you here..."

"Of course not, daddy," she shook her head honestly. "It's been really fun."

"Good, good," he nodded with a warm smile, before he curiously asked her, "do you still play gin rummy?"

"Oh, my God, all the time!" she answered enthusiastically. "Whenever I fly."

"Penny a point?" he asked if she'd like to play a round.

**\---**

"Hey... it's Tae. D-Don't get the wrong idea. I just wanna... just wanna talk," Taehyung whispered, after softly knocking on the door of Jeongguk's room that night.

"I just thought, since I've been kind of _critical_ recently... that maybe I should tell you how _magnificent_ you were today... you know, taking out their grid and..." he smiled into the darkness of the room, "how you couldn't hit Min back..." he giggled fondly.

Then, after a moment of silence, Tae asked, "are you even in here?" and when there was no response, he switched the light on and pursed his lips, as he was met with nothing but an empty bed.

**\---**

"Gin!" Gemma chirped as she won the first round of gin rummy against her father.

"What?" he gaped in surprise, but nevertheless, he moved to count how many points he had. "Hundred and five..." he sighed softly.

Then, Gemma announced how much he owed her, "twenty-eight thousand."

" _Dollars_??" Namjoon's brows furrowed.

"Well, it's all going to charity, daddy..."

"Well, darling," he began, as he retrieved his checkbook from his coat, "I'm very pleased you've inherited not only your mother's beauty and naïve charm, but also her singular talent for getting huge sums of money out of me with a modicum of effort."

Once he was finished writing out the check, however, he realized Gemma's smile was gone, and she couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't want it..." she replied quietly.

"I'm sorry," Namjoon shook his head self-deprecatingly. "It was a joke... I mean, to be honest, she didn't exactly marry me for _love_ , did she?"

"My _mother_..." Gemma slowly stood from her seat, "was a twenty-four-year-old blackjack dealer from _Nebraska_. You had to tip her _five hundred dollars_ just to have a _drink_ with you! You get married _two weeks later_ , at the age of _a hundred and seventy-five_ \--!!"

"Fifty-one, to be precise," Namjoon interjected.

"--and now you're mad because she had the _brains_ to get some money out of it before you _dumped her_?!"

"No, I'm mad about the _amount_ ," he replied as-a-matter-of-factly.

"Oh! Well, okay! You can have mine!" she shook her head with a wry laugh, "because I'm cutting myself off! I don't want anything from you anymore!"

Then, after a second, she backtracked, "except for food... and clothes... and _rent_ , and like... _travel_ , but I'm totally serious!!"

"Yes," Namjoon said sarcastically, " _that's_ what is _so frightening_ about it."

Gemma turned to leave the room then, only for him to call out for her.

"Gemma?" he sighed softly. "For what it's worth... I _loved_ your mother... and I love _you_."

So Gemma nodded understandingly and, without another word, she headed off to bed.

As Taehyung laid wide awake in his own bed that night, he could only imagine where Jeongguk disappeared to; Especially after he discovered that his sword was missing from its glass tank of water as well.

Seeing as Jeongguk didn't own a cellphone, either, Taehyung could only hope and pray that he was safe, wherever he was.

**\---**

Assuming everyone else to be asleep, Jeongguk had taken to borrowing some scuba gear from the yacht, for a quick little trip to Big Bunny Deenz's.

"You believe in ghosts, Curtis?" Jeongguk muttered into the man's ear, after wrapping an arm around his chest and holding the blade of the sword to his throat from behind.

"You know what? You are some kinda stupid," Curtis replied, from where he'd been standing at the kitchen sink.

"Now you sound like my husband," Jeongguk smirked at that. "Bunny around?"

"You know, I can't really hear you," he said, in regards to the bandages he had wrapped around his head, from Jeongguk shooting his ear. "You talkin' to my deaf ear."

"Oh," Jeongguk hummed.

As soon as he moved to speak into his other ear, Curtis grabbed a bottle of dish soap from the sink and squeezed, as he aimed it at Jeongguk's face, making him shout with the way it stung his eyes.

That's when Curtis grabbed him and shoved him across the kitchen floor, whereupon he roughly collided with the countertop at the far side of it.

He remained slumped there against it, until Curtis came running up behind him, at which point Jeongguk quickly swung his arm and smacked Curtis across the face, with the frying pan he grabbed whilst pretending he was too weak to move.

"Curtis?" Cordell limped his way over to the kitchen after hearing all the commotion, only to be knocked backward onto the floor in the next instant, with the way Jeongguk abruptly kicked the door open.

Then, he straddled Cordell's chest, held the sword to his throat, and panted, "now... take me to see Bigg Bunny."

"Bigg Bunny ain't never wanna find out you didn't drown the first time," Cordell glared up at him.

"Okay," Jeongguk shrugged, before he brought his free hand up, grabbed the blade of the sword, and attempted to force it downward, only for Cordell to grab a hold of it with both hands as well.

"Shit," Jeongguk sighed when he realized just how _dull_ the blade was.

"When's the last time you had this thing sharpened??" Cordell's brows furrowed in confusion, as they pushed the blade toward one another without so much as a scratch.

"1715..."

Cordell rolled his eyes at that, as he shoved Jeongguk away from him and, while Jeongguk scrambled back onto his feet, Cordell was able to pull his pistol from the back of his pants.

"Okay, okay, okay! One second!" Jeongguk rushed out, holding the sword out in front of him, as if it would even stand a chance against a gun. "Look, twenty people saw me today; Everybody on Min's boat. Now, if _you guys_ take me to Big Bunny, it's gonna look _a lot better_ than if he finds out I'm alive from someone _else_."

"It ain't his decision no more," an unfamiliar voice chimed in from the side, leading Jeongguk to face them with a confused furrow to his brows.

"Okay, now, who the hell are _you_?" he asked, and the last thing he saw was the wood of a cricket bat, before his world went black (yet again).

**\---**

"Ain't no fool like a gold fool," Bigg Bunny laughed, as Jeongguk finally came to, several minutes later, on the floor of the rapper's rum distillery. "Ain't that right, Mr. Jeon?"

Jeongguk winced as he sat up, but the first thing he asked was, "who's the new guy??" with a distasteful expression.

"This here is Cyrus," he gestured to the guy holding the cricket bat with pride. "He's my new, uh... chief of staff. He's helpin' me to refocus, reform, and renew."

"What do you need him for, huh?" Cordell narrowed his eyes at Bigg Bunny. "We handlin' it."

Then, without warning, a gunshot went off, making Jeongguk spring up off the floor and back into the wall of rum barrels.

"Whoa, whoa!!" Jeongguk held his hands up, alongside Curtis who appeared just as frightened, as Cordell collapsed to the floor with a bullet hole in his forehead.

"God!! _What_ \--?? Why'd you do that??" Curtis glared at the new guy, Cyrus, who returned his revolver to his jeans with a smug grin.

"Just a little restructure," he said.

"See, you let this boy get past you," Bigg Bunny told Curtis, as he studied the blade of Jeongguk's sword in his hands, "not just once, but _twice_. So I hope you focused now."

"Oh, _extremely_ focused," Curtis nodded. " _Very_ motivated... my morale's probably twenty percent higher than when I came in here--"

"Can I get a word in?" Jeongguk asked rhetorically.

"What? What do you want?" Bigg Bunny glared at him.

"I wanna buy some time."

"You still breathin', ain't you?"

"Yeah. Thank you," Jeongguk rolled his eyes. "Now, hear me out; The way I see it? You bet on Min, you got a fifty-fifty chance, but you bet on the _both of us_ , and we cover _twice_ the ground in only _half_ the time... _and_ , I'm willing to give _you_ ten percent of everything I find. Plus what I already owe you, of course."

"How much you say?" Bigg Bunny smiled at Jeongguk, as he casually began to walk over to Cyrus.

"Ten percent, across the board."

"Ten percent, huh?" he asked, "wow. Say it again."

"Come on, what?" Jeongguk scoffed at the sight of Cyrus flicking his revolver open. "Twelve percent's cool," he shrugged it off.

"You know, I couldn't even hear you," Bigg Bunny chuckled, as Cyrus slipped a bullet into the cylinder. "What you say?"

" _Fifteen_ percent, but I gotta find--"

"I'm sorry, how much?" he asked, as Cyrus snapped the cylinder into place.

" _Eighteen_ , but I owe other people," Jeongguk said sternly.

"That don't sound right," Bigg Bunny shook his head, leading Cyrus to cock the hammer back.

"Okay, _twenty percent_ , but that's _it_! _Final_!"

Another gunshot went off, into the ceiling this time around, making Jeongguk and Curtis jump again.

" _Damn it_!!" Jeongguk shrieked. "What?!! How much do you want?!!"

"I'll tell you what..." Bigg Bunny stepped closer to him, "you find the treasure, and I won't kill you."

**\---**

"How much do you owe him?"

"Whoa!" Jeongguk jumped once more, causing him to slip on the lowest deck of the yacht and land on his bare ass, after he'd taken to removing his trunks in order to dry himself off.

He quickly covered himself with the towel he brought out from his room before he took off, as he realized Taehyung had been sitting at the bottom of the steps, waiting for him to return.

"Jesus, Tae..."

"How much do you owe him?" Taehyung reiterated.

"Owe who?" Jeongguk asked, as he got back onto his feet and wrapped the towel around his waist properly. "Owe who what?"

"Bigg Bunny," Taehyung answered, clasping his hands together.

"I don't owe him any money," Jeongguk lied straight through his teeth, as if--after being married to him for a _decade_ \--Taehyung wouldn't be able to tell when Jeongguk wasn't being honest with him.

"Guk," Taehyung said as calmly as he could manage, "how much do you owe him? Just tell me, so I'll know."

"Well, Tae... I mean, that's so hard to be specific about. I-It's a really complex payment schedule--"

" _How much_?!" Tae snapped.

"Sixty-two thousand, five hundred eighty-one dollars and forty-three cents..." Jeongguk answered immediately, causing Taehyung to stare blankly at him. "But we're good now."

"Is there a reason you didn't tell me this before??" Taehyung frustratedly shook his head.

"Yeah..." Jeongguk said. "You wouldn't have come..."

"Yeah, I would," Tae gave a curt laugh in response to that. "Just wouldn't have come with _you_."

So Jeongguk looked down at the deck between them and, after unclenching his jaw, he asked Taehyung seriously, "are we finished?" in regards to salvaging their relationship.

Taehyung hesitated for a moment, but he willed himself to be strong enough to tell him, "we sure are..."

Then, he moved to go back to bed, leaving Jeongguk to himself on the deck.


	7. six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE
> 
> The smut scene at the end of this chapter is glossed over in the movie, so I extended it, for those interested!

  
"You good?" Jeongguk asked Gemma, after helping her into her scuba gear on the lowest deck, the following afternoon.

"Yeah," she nodded excitedly.

"Okay," he smiled.

"What happened to your face?" Namjoon asked him out of concern, as the younger man had a slit running horizontally across the bridge of his nose.

"Somebody hit me with a cricket bat," Jeongguk replied casually because getting hit in the head seemed to be a regular occurrence for him as of late.

"Ah..." Namjoon sympathetically winced, opting to pull his goggles on, while Jeongguk moved to help Taehyung out.

"This is a new type of regulator, so--"

"Oh, shove it up your ass," Taehyung rolled his eyes, before he slipped his goggles on.

"Alright, we're good to go," Jeongguk declared.

"Ready, darling?" Namjoon asked Gemma.

"Drop dead," she muttered.

"This is just like the old days, huh?" Seokjin hummed from the opposite end of the deck, to which Taehyung & Jeongguk hopped in first, leaving the rest to follow.

Equipped with metal detectors, the five of them scoured the ocean floor near the reef for any sign of the wreckage they so desperately sought after.

They didn't find very much over the first few days of searching, mainly just soda cans, kitchen utensils, and boat parts; All of which, they collected and disposed of properly.

Bigg Bunny had Yoongi and his team out there as well, several yards away, so their explosives wouldn't bother Jeongguk and _his_ team, but that didn't do very much to stifle the uneasy feeling they got each time Bigg Bunny's seaplane would fly overhead.

Therefore--stressed to the nth degree--Jeongguk & Seokjin encouraged Taehyung, Namjoon, and Gemma to join them in having a few drinks at a tiki bar on Topsail Cay.

"You know what else is really bugging me?" Tae thought aloud, after about four double shots of rum.

"No," Jeongguk placed his own shot glass on the table in front of him with a _clink_. "But, _please_ , tell us... because I may personally drop dead from disappointment, if I don't find out the _seven hundred millionth thing about life on planet Earth_ that is buggin' _you_."

"Well, this is fun..." Namjoon sighed, sipping from his martini glass every now and again.

" _Listen_ ," Taehyung rolled his eyes. "If I am the Dutch frigate stuck on a reef, in a dead calm, in the same cove the _Aurelia_ sank three years earlier... in less than _thirty feet_ of the _clearest water in the world_..."

"Then, how come I can't see her?" Namjoon concluded.

"Because she isn't there..." Jeongguk said.

So Taehyung mulled it over for a moment, before he said, "yeah, I dunno..." with an indifferent shake of his head.

"Yeah, no, Sebastian specifically said that's where she sank," Jeongguk agreed, with a similar look of indifference.

"My dear children... your _entire theory_ is predicated on the proposition that Sebastian _lied about everything he could_ to prevent the ship being found," Namjoon hummed in amusement, setting his glass on the table as well. "So why on _Earth_ would he tell the truth about where she sank? I mean, it seems to me that the _Aurelia_ _can't_ be in the cove, for the simple reason that that's where Sebastian said she was."

"Sorry to disturb, sir," the captain of the _Precious Gem_ suddenlyapproached their table, completely drenched in rainwater, in order to inform Namjoon that, "we've had to move to the lee side of the island, on account of the storm."

"She won't fit in the marina?"

"Afraid not," he replied. "A taxi will take you to the beach on the north end. Give us a call and we'll pick you up on the launch."

"Better safe than sorry," Namjoon nodded in agreement with the mildly inconveniencing change of plans.

"Certainly," the captain nodded respectfully, before he turned to leave.

"I've grown rather fond of not sinking," Namjoon chuckled.

"Oh, don't even say that," Taehyung shook his head.

"It would be a shame to lose the art collection," Jin said.

"Or Gemma's shoes..." Tae added.

"Especially because we're so close to shore, you know?" Gemma asked rhetorically, which somehow helped Jeongguk put two and two together, because he wore a beaming grin in response.

"Oh, my God..." he shook his head. "Oh, my God, _of course_!"

"What?" Taehyung asked, as Jeongguk slowly stood from his seat.

"You," he looked down at Gemma and cupped her face in his hands, before he dipped his head down to press a quick, grateful kiss to the top of her head, "are a _genius_."

Then, as Gemma's face lit up, Jeongguk rushed outside to catch the captain.

"Stefan!"

"Yes?" he turned back, just before he could climb into the backseat of a taxi cab.

"Why did you pick the north beach?" Jeongguk asked him curiously, as the others quickly joined them outside in the pouring rain.

"I didn't," Stefan shook his head. "It's the only beach on the island that isn't blocked by the reef..."

"Yes," Jeongguk nodded affirmatively, before he pulled the man in for a tight hug. " _Yes_! He ran her aground."

Taehyung raised a brow when Jeongguk let go of the captain, in order to quite literally dance his way back up to the group. "What are you so happy about?"

"He ran her aground!!"

"What?"

"To save the Dowry!! Sebastian ran the whole goddamn thing aground!!" Jeongguk cheered.

**\---**

"I bet you a thousand dollars I find something between here and that beach," Jeongguk bet Taehyung, after they returned to the yacht later on in the night.

"You don't have a thousand dollars," Tae reminded him, crossing his arms over his chest, as he watched Jeongguk gather up his scuba gear for another dive.

"Fine, make it _ten_."

"You don't have ten dollars..."

" _Fine_ ," Jeongguk sighed, setting his oxygen harness down on the deck to check it over, "make it a _million_."

Then, as he was pulling on his wetsuit, Taehyung rolled his eyes and began to gather up his _own_ scuba gear.

"What are you doing?" Jeongguk asked him.

"If you think I'm letting you go out there alone, you're crazy."

"What, you don't trust me?" he chuckled, as he reached for a pair of metal detectors.

"Why on Earth would I trust you?"

Jeongguk just smirked at that, before he handed one of the detectors over to Taehyung, keeping one for himself to use.

**\---**

Beneath the water, Taehyung & Jeongguk unintentionally split up, upon following the repetitive beeping of their detectors in two different directions.

When they resurfaced together a short while later, however, they were ecstatic to discover that they'd both uncovered the exact same thing.

"I found a cannon!!" they announced in unison, after spitting their regulators out and pushing their goggles up onto their foreheads.

"You did _what_??" Taehyung's eyes widened in realization.

"You mean there's _two_??"

"There's _two cannons_!!" Tae cheered, wrapping his arms around Jeongguk's neck in an enthusiastic bear hug, " _and_ I owe you a million dollars!!"

"Yes, you do!!" Jeongguk laughed and, when he attempted to hug Tae back, he was playfully shoved back under the water in return.

Upon resurfacing again, Jeongguk spat a mouthful of seawater at Taehyung, before he exclaimed, "we got the _Aurelia_ , baby!!"

Then, a bit quieter, Jeongguk said, "listen to me; If anybody finds out about this, outside of our crew, we are _screwed_..."

"Wow..." Taehyung shook his head at that. "Can't you just _enjoy_ this for a second?"

"Oh, I'm enjoyin' it," Jeongguk assured him, right before he shoved Tae underwater as payback.

"Oh, God!" Taehyung giggled when he came back up a moment later, "thank _God_!" and, as they leaned back and let themselves float upon the surface of the water together, Taehyung shouted triumphantly toward the stars, " _WOO-HOO_!!!" making Jeongguk's heart swell with adoration.

**\---**

"Well, there's not much here," Jeongguk thought aloud, after a few hours of searching the beach with their detectors, the following morning. "They probably burned the ship and took everything inland."

"Alright, well, what do we know about Topsail Cay?" Taehyung asked then. "We got the town, the church..." he listed off.

"There's Preacher's Cave," Jeongguk added.

"We were up there once, remember?" Taehyung replied. "It said something about first settlers, religious freedom..."

"Yeah, but that was like... 1780-somethin'..." Jeongguk shook his head. "I mean Sebastian beat 'em here, by almost _seventy years_."

"If there are any old records, they're in the church," Taehyung told him assuredly. "Letters, journals, sermons..."

"That's smart, Tae," Jeongguk nodded in agreement, earning a not-so-modest shrug from his ex-husband in return, before he added, "it's the oldest building on the island."

**\---**

As he & Taehyung sat together that evening, searching for answers within the archives beneath the church--with the priest's permission, of course--Jeongguk couldn't help but think of all the other times they'd been together like this, in a comfortable silence, with their noses between the dusty pages of the books they read.

"Don't even think about it," Taehyung murmured when he caught Jeongguk staring, without even having to look away from the pages of the book he'd been holding.

"What?"

"Don't " _what_ " me. You know what," Taehyung replied flatly.

"I mean... it's _weird_ , right?" Jeongguk asked.

"What?"

" _This_..." he looked around the room, before his gaze fell back upon Taehyung, who sat before him on the sandy floorboards, " _us_... _together_...?"

"It's _complex_ , but not in a _good_ way," Taehyung shook his head at that, still refraining from looking up at Jeongguk, mainly because he knew for a fact that the second he'd catch sight of the twinkle in Jeongguk's eye, he'd be done for.

However, with Taehyung's response, the twinkle inevitably faded away, along with Jeongguk's hopeful half-smile.

"Well, can I just say... I _really_ wish we were still married?" Jeongguk asked quietly, making Taehyung sigh aloud.

"No..." he answered.

**\---**

"Oh, my God, listen to this!" Taehyung suddenly broke their silence, hours later, after flipping through the pages of _several_ books with Jeongguk.

He traced his fingertip along the page of the journal he'd been studying for the last half-hour or so, while he translated the words, written in Spanish, for Jeongguk to hear.

"" _That we are by no means the first Europeans to visit here is finally proven, by the discovery of a Spanish gravestone, that of a woman. I cannot but wonder who she was, and how she came to die here, for the headstone reads simply,_ Aurelia _, 1715._ ""

"Holy shit..." Jeongguk immediately disregarded the book he'd been reading, on the opposite side of the cellar, in order to rush over to Taehyung.

"" _Forsake her I could not,_ "" Tae continued to read aloud, even as Jeongguk sat down at his side once more, "" _and so it was here, on this beautiful hilltop, that I resolved to bury our own dead and begin work building a church._ ""

"He marked it with a headstone," Jeongguk concluded.

"And this guy built a church around it," Taehyung nodded comprehensively.

So, simultaneously, the pair looked up into each other's eyes and excitedly agreed, "it's in the cemetery!"

Then, without warning, Taehyung was closing the journal and tossing it aside, in order to cup Jeongguk's face and kiss him hard, as he'd been resisting the urge to do so for far too long.

" _Gukkie_ ," he breathed, as he eagerly moved to sit in his lap.

"Mm," Jeongguk whimpered against his lips, as Tae's fingers got to work undoing the buttons of his shirt, before he shrugged it off and tossed it aside.

So Jeongguk quickly undid the buttons of his own shirt as well, while Taehyung brought his hands up to play with the long strands of hair at Jeongguk's nape.

"Is this really happening?" he asked between kisses, so Taehyung leaned back a bit.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No, no," Jeongguk immediately shook his head, " _definitely_ don't want that--"

So Taehyung--clearly satisfied with that answer--silenced him with another searing kiss. Jeongguk wasn't silent for long, however, considering the way he hissed against Taehyung's lips, with another slow tug of his dark hair.

"T-Tae," he stuttered a moment later, when he could feel his ex mouthing at his neck, while his fingertips untied the knotted strings of his trunks.

"Do you have any idea how fucking hard it is to get over you?" Taehyung muttered against his skin, leaving a mark in the junction between Jeongguk's neck and shoulder, just as he slipped his hand down the front of his trunks.

Jeongguk moaned at the feeling of Taehyung palming him; A heavenly feeling he never thought he'd have the pleasure of experiencing ever again. " _God_ ,I've missed you so much, baby-- _ahh_ ~"

"Oh, yeah?" Taehyung unabashedly slipped his hand a little lower, massaging Jeongguk's balls and making him whine.

"Mhm," Jeongguk nodded fervently, bitten-red lips parting in a shuddery gasp, as Taehyung licked a slow, firm line up the side of his neck.

"Prove it," Taehyung whispered into his ear, nibbling on the lobe for a moment, before he removed his hand from Jeongguk's trunks.

This led Jeongguk to grab a hold of Taehyung's hips, lift him up, and take control from there.

"Gladly," Jeongguk smirked, making easy work of laying Taehyung down against the creaky floorboards, untying his trunks, and slipping them down and off his sun-kissed legs, before he knelt down between them.

He wasted no time in teasing Taehyung back with a firm lap of his tongue along the underside of his dick, all the way up to the tip, whereupon Taehyung's thighs trembled a bit at either side of Jeongguk's head, leading him to hold them apart with his hands as he continued to tease him with his tongue.

"Mm, _Jeongguk_..." Tae closed his eyes and let his head rest back against the floor, while he reveled in the feeling of Jeongguk's sedulous mouth and comforting hands.

The more Jeongguk took in, the louder Taehyung became, and his gravelly voice filled the expanse of the cellar, when he eventually felt himself sliding in and out of Jeongguk's throat.

It was messy and loud, the way Jeongguk bobbed his head and slurped at his shaft, and he didn't seem to care when Taehyung would choke him up a little by rolling his hips upward.

"Ahh, _fuck_ ," Taehyung looked down and cursed when Jeongguk took him all the way in, with his lips stretched tight around the base of his cock, and the tip of his nose momentarily brushing against his happy trail.

" _Yes_..." Tae tossed his head back again, at the feeling of Jeongguk swallowing around him once, then twice, and finally, Tae was coming down his throat with a strangled cry of his name, "J- _Jeongguk_!!"

He pulled away from Taehyung a moment later with another quick swallow, before he reached for Tae's nape, guided him back into his lap, and kissed him deeply despite their breathlessness.

Then, feeling lighter than air--and wet enough from Jeongguk's saliva to finally take him--Taehyung shakily stood on his knees, pushed the loosened waistline of Jeongguk's trunks down around his cock, then spit in his own palm and reached to guide the tip of it toward his hole.

"Wait, baby, don't you think I should stretch you f--? _Oh_ \--"

Jeongguk gaped, as Taehyung slowly began to sink himself down and around his length, with a pleasantly overwhelmed bite of his lower lip and a tiny, overstimulated whimper.

" _Fuck_ , Tae..." Jeongguk groaned, with his hands gripping Taehyung's waist like a lifeline.

"C'mon, Gukkie," Tae encouraged, gently pushing him back against the floorboards, but keeping his hands pressed to his chest, as he slowly began to bounce in Jeongguk's lap. "Fuck me like you mean it," he smirked.

So, without further ado, Jeongguk planted his feet on the floor, kept a firm hold of Taehyung's waist, and began to meet each of his avid bounces with an upward snap of his hips.

"Mm! Yes!" Taehyung mewled, as Jeongguk picked up the pace, making wet claps of skin on skin echo throughout the cellar along with their impassioned moans.

Jeongguk's gaze trailed up to Taehyung's face, just as his hands trailed upward along his smooth, golden skin. As he reveled in the feeling of being there with his ex on such an intimate level, Taehyung's gaze inevitably met his, and he cherished the momentary connection like it might've been the very last time.

Given the high probability of that being the case, Jeongguk wrapped a secure arm around Taehyung's waist, before he rolled their bodies to the side and carried on fucking Taehyung in the missionary position; It wasn't necessarily their _favorite_ position, but it worked for them that night, without a doubt.

Being able to watch Tae's expressions change, as he lost more and more of himself to the feeling of Jeongguk filling and surrounding him, was like a drug, and Jeongguk was hopelessly addicted to it.

Taehyung's nails created faint, cross-hatching, red lines along Jeongguk's back as well, which did nothing to help either of them in being able to last much longer.

"G-Gukkie, I missed you," Taehyung whimpered, with his eyes glassy and hands moving to caress Jeongguk's face, so as to avoid completely marring the flesh of his back.

Jeongguk's grin widened with the sentiment and, when Taehyung guided him down for another deep kiss, he couldn't help but whisper, "I love you," against his plump, red lips.

"Jeongguk-- _"_ Tae gasped at that, as well as the particularly hard thrust Jeongguk gave with it. " _Ah_ ~"

"I love you, Taehyung," Jeongguk reiterated, leading Taehyung to break and confess the truthful entirety of his feelings in the next instant.

"I-I love you, too."

"Don't bullshit me," Jeongguk pleaded, as he didn't want Taehyung telling him that, just because he thought that's what he wanted to hear.

"No," Taehyung shook his head in agreement, "I'm not," and his glassy eyes finally shed their tears, as he affirmed, "I love you, Jeongguk."

" _Fuck_ \--"

Taehyung gasped once more, at the feeling of Jeongguk speeding up his movements, then abruptly coming inside him a short moment later, with one final thrust and a whine of his name.

" _Tae_ \--" he panted, as Taehyung swiped his sweaty black hair out of his face, "you're sure this isn't a dream?"

Taehyung just shook his head fondly.

"It's real, Gukkie," he assured him with a happy giggle. "I really, _really_ love you."

So Jeongguk's elated grin returned, before he replied, "I really, really love you, too."


	8. seven

"Anything?" Jeongguk asked Taehyung, from the seat of the _Vespa_ scooter he'd hot-wired earlier on, in order to bring them to the church.

After their steamy rekindling in the cellar, the pair moved outdoors to search for the _Aurelia_ 's headstone, but so far, they hadn't had much luck.

"It's not here," Taehyung sighed, as he was knelt before a headstone he was certain he'd already checked.

They'd looked at every single headstone in the cemetery, and not one of them was marked with the name they were looking for.

"I refuse to believe that."

"Well, just because you refuse to believe something doesn't make it _true_ ," Taehyung said as-a-matter-of-factly, "or _false_... or whatever the hell I'm saying..." he shook his head.

"Somethin' wrong, Tae?"

"Why would anything be wrong?" Taehyung replied satirically, as he stood to walk over to another headstone he was sure he'd seen before. "We just had sex in a _church_ , and we're not even _married_ , and now we're gonna _dig up a grave_. I mean, what is that, like a _triple sin_?? I can't believe we haven't been struck by _lightning_ \-- _whoa_!!"

"Oh, shit, you okay?" Jeongguk asked, having watched Taehyung trip over a rock and land on his ass in the grass.

"Ow," Taehyung hissed, and he momentarily kicked his feet out, as if shaking the pain from the toes he'd accidentally hit against the rock. "Stupid rock!" he pouted, kicking at the stone with the sole of his shoe. "That's the _second_ _time_ I've done that."

"Okay, we can't have that," Jeongguk immediately hopped off the scooter. "Come here, you stupid rock," he said, as he reached down to lift the stone from the grass and move it elsewhere.

"Thank you," Taehyung cooed, raking his teeth over his lower lip in response to Jeongguk's show of strength, before he looked at the underside of the rock and said, "wait, stop!!"

"Oh," Jeongguk pursed his lips, "honey, it's heavy..."

"So is this..." Taehyung's lips parted in wonder at the sight of what had been engraved in the seemingly inconspicuous stone.

**_AURELIA_ **   
**1715**

**\---**

"Gukkie...?" Taehyung anxiously called from the seat of the scooter, using the headlight to provide Jeongguk with just enough light to see, while he dug several feet into the dirt where the rock had previously been sitting. " _Gukkie_."

"What?" Jeongguk huffed as he continued to dig.

"What if it's a _body_?"

Just then, Jeongguk's shovel hit something solid, emitting a light _thud_ upon impact. So Jeongguk unburied whatever it was, only to uncover a simple wooden barrel.

He lifted it up and placed it in the grass at the edge of the hole he dug, then he reached up to haul himself up and out as well.

"Not likely," Jeongguk panted, before he stood and grabbed the shovel in order to break the barrel open.

"What if it's a _head_??" Taehyung asked.

"Do you mind?" he countered, leading Taehyung to place a hand over his own mouth, while Jeongguk proceeded to break the barrel open with a well-aimed stab through the top.

Inside, was a leather journal, amongst a bundle of cloth, containing a compass, a rosary, and an hourglass, among other various mementos.

As Taehyung studied the items wrapped in cloth, Jeongguk carefully lifted the cover of the journal to reveal the first page, of which was entirely filled with cursive handwriting.

"Oh, my God..." Jeongguk said, upon realizing it was all in Spanish, "it's his," and with that, Taehyung was setting the cloth aside, in order to translate Sebastian Vangor's writing.

**\---**

"" _To my everlasting relief, and after a year's toil in this lonely place, have I finally stumbled upon a suitable place for my cargo; Fortified by nature against the encroachments, accidental or deliberate, even of those who would force our tongues to betray its trust,_ "" Taehyung continued to read aloud.

"" _The low December tide showed us the way in and the only way out. But, from January to November, the beached whale's spout is both ingress or egress. Thus, is the vault rendered, made virtually impenetrable._ ""

"The beached whale's spout?" Jeongguk hummed in confusion, but after a moment, he realized, "it's a blowhole."

"The one at Clifton Point," Taehyung provided, seeing as there was in fact a blowhole on that side of the island, in the rocks near the shoreline.

"The low December tide..."

"The winter solstice," Taehyung nodded. "The lowest tide of the year exposes the mouth of the blowhole, which is normally under fifteen to twenty feet of water."

"Two days out of the year it's a cave. They float the chests in, the tide returns... then the place becomes a deathtrap..." Jeongguk laughed a bit at how _genius_ of a hiding place that would be.

"Did we just find our treasure...?" Taehyung asked, seemingly in shock.

"Sounds like it!" a third voice suddenly chimed in, instantly distracting the pair from their discoveries.

"Nice to meet you, Taehyung," Bigg Bunny sarcastically greeted him, alongside Curtis and Cyrus, who had his revolver out and ready to shoot.

"Oh, hey, Bunny!" Jeongguk remained calm despite the pressure of the situation, leading Taehyung to swallow thickly and remain silent at his side, as Jeongguk took the journal from his shaking hands and slowly stood with him. "What the hell are you doin' here?"

"Give me the book."

"Come on, Bunny," Jeongguk shook his head at that. "I mean... are you sure you don't wanna, you know, give it to the _new guy_?!" he asked, as he chucked the hefty journal, much like a frisbee, directly at Cyrus' head.

A gunshot went off, as his finger instinctively pulled the trigger, leading Taehyung to jump out of fear, while Jeongguk rushed to tackle Cyrus to the ground.

So Taehyung quickly reached for the shovel on the ground and looked over at Bigg Bunny.

"What you think you gonna do with that, huh?" he asked, right before Taehyung bravely swung the tool toward his head, only for him to duck and avoid being hit.

Curtis, seeming a bit reluctant to have to shoot anybody, had his gun haphazardly aimed at Taehyung, as he continued to swing the shovel back and forth in an attempt to hit Big Bunny's head.

This eventually led the rapper to dive to the side and fall into the pit Jeongguk dug earlier that night.

Then, when Taehyung immediately turned toward Curtis, his eyes widened and he held his hands up.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Curtis shook his head seriously, "I don't--I don't want no trouble!" leading Taehyung to raise a brow at him, before he rushed to get Cyrus off of Jeongguk instead.

The older man had Jeongguk by the throat against the grass, so Taehyung quickly swung the shovel downward against his back, making him cry out and release his grip of Jeongguk's neck.

"Get him, baby!! Get him!!" Jeongguk encouraged, right as Curtis--of course--went back on his word and grabbed Taehyung from behind.

So Taehyung stomped on his foot with his heel, causing him to let go, before he cracked Curtis in the face with the back of the shovel.

Then, Taehyung gasped, as he watched Cyrus punch Jeongguk in the temple, only to be shoved onto his back and clocked in the jaw by Jeongguk in return.

In the next moment, however, Jeongguk abruptly stood and rushed over to the scooter.

"Jeongguk??" Taehyung shook his head at him in confusion, right as Cyrus got a firm hold of his gun and aimed it at Jeongguk once more.

So Taehyung quickly swung the shovel, knocked the revolver out of Cyrus' hands, and sprinted toward Jeongguk.

"Come on!!" he patted the space on the seat behind him and, as Taehyung finally reached the scooter, Bigg Bunny finally managed to climb out of the pit.

"Hey! Hey!" he tried to stop them, but as they sped past him, Taehyung smacked him right in the dick with the shovel, making him cry out as he fell back down into the hole.

"G-Get after them, damn it!!" he shouted at Curtis & Cyrus.

"Hang on!!" Jeongguk told Taehyung, as they zipped through a small jungle of trees, with Cyrus--armed once again--sprinting after them. "Are you shot??"

"What??" Taehyung asked over all the commotion, as he clung to Jeongguk's middle.

"Shot?! You?!"

"No!! Are _you_ shot?!"

"No, not yet!!" Jeongguk answered, before he spotted a few low-hanging branches up ahead, " _duck_!!"

"What??" Taehyung shook his head frustratedly, right before he was harshly clotheslined off the back of the scooter with a branch to the chest.

"GUK!!" he shouted hoarsely, and he began to cough as well, from having the wind knocked from his lungs.

"SHIT!!!" Jeongguk gaped because he didn't even have time to turn back, considering the way the front wheel of the scooter abruptly dropped, before his entire body went flying over the edge of a cliff along with it.

" _JEONGGUK_!!!" Taehyung cried out, as he watched it happen, from where he was thrown from the scooter, just a few yards back. "NO!!! JEONGGUK!!!"

Then, before Taehyung could even begin to process the fact that _he may have just watched the love of his life_ _fall to his death_ , Cyrus finally caught up to them, and he was quick to snatch Taehyung up off the ground by his hair.

" _JEONGGUK_!!!" Taehyung screamed.

**\---**

"You sure he's really dead?" Bigg Bunny glared at Cyrus and Curtis, after they walked Taehyung all the way back to the cemetery. "I've been disappointed a lot of times before."

"I should've aimed at your _head_ , you little son of a bitch," Taehyung scowled, as he gave the man a disapproving once over.

"I'll tell you what," Bigg Bunny began, "I'm gonna have my boys submit your theory to a little _academic review_ , while I go _sit my balls on some ice_!!"

With that, Taehyung was held captive until daylight finally broke, whereupon Cyrus & Curtis were ordered to take Taehyung down to Clifton Point--to the blowhole--in order to see if there was anything there.

"After this wave, you've got about fifty seconds," Cyrus told Taehyung, who had a rope tied around his waist and one of his biceps locked in Curtis' harsh grasp, until he decided to swing his free fist toward Curtis' face in an attempt to break free.

But Curtis easily caught Taehyung's fist in his hand, before he exasperatedly shouted, "would you just _get in the hole_?!" then shoved him down onto his knees.

As if on cue, the wave Cyrus had mentioned a second ago, came splashing up through the hole in the rock with the force of a geyser, then rained down upon the three of them until they were completely drenched in seawater.

When Curtis pulled his pistol from the back of his jeans and aimed it at the back of Taehyung's head, he screamed, "I _CAN'T_!!!"

So Cyrus knelt down and grabbed a hold of Taehyung's hair again, in order to bring his head close enough for him to grumble, "get in the hole," directly in his ear.

"Damn, Cyrus!" Curtis shook his head at that. "Why you _always_ in my business, huh?! I'm _handlin' this shit_!!"

Cyrus ignored him, however, in order to grab the rope and begin lowering Taehyung's body down into the cavern.

"You know what? _You_ run it," Curtis gave in then, slipping his gun back in his jeans and taking a few steps back, while Taehyung finally set foot on the ground at the bottom of the cavern.

He quickly looked around, finding nothing but small crabs and barnacles on the walls, before he looked up at Cyrus and shouted, "it's not here!!"

"Check underwater!!" Cyrus called back, dropping a pair of goggles down for him to use.

"There's nothing but rock!!"

"And I'm just supposed to believe you, am I?!"

"YOU WANT A SECOND OPINION?!! COME ON DOWN!!! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!" he demanded.

"Pull him up, man!" Curtis stared at Cyrus expectantly, only for the older man to gather up the rest of the rope and toss it down into the hole with Taehyung.

"Say hi to your husband!!" Cyrus smirked.

"WHAT?!!" Taehyung gaped incredulously. " _NO_!!!" he screamed. Then, when all of the water at the bottom of the cavern began to drain, he did his best to refrain from hyperventilating. "Oh, God..." he breathed.

"What the hell are you doing, man?!" Curtis shoved Cyrus aside, in order to call out to Taehyung, "throw me the rope!!"

Instead, as Cyrus retaliated by kicking Curtis in the ribs to get him out of the way, Taehyung gathered up the rope, slipped the goggles on, and climbed into the hole in the rock where the seawater had drained through.

He held his breath and lowered himself into the water once he was no longer able to avoid it and, at first, he saw nothing but rock and sea life beneath the surface.

That was until he caught sight of a silver glint in his peripheral, which led him to glance over and take note of the sizable pile of silver, gold, and jewels that lay hidden within the cavern, just as he & Jeongguk had suspected.

Taehyung's eyes widened and his lips stretched into a boxy grin, but his smile was almost immediately erased, as he watched the next thunderous wave come rolling into the cavern.

Therefore, having spotted a cannon among the treasure pile--an exact match of the pair he & Jeongguk discovered offshore--Taehyung dove toward it and tied the rope around it as quickly as he could manage, before the wave could finally reach him.

He held onto the cannon for dear life, wrapping his arms around the barrel and keeping his head ducked down, in order to avoid any debris that came rushing toward his face.

The force of the wave pushed Taehyung away from the cannon, however, leading him to grab a hold of the rope at the last second, which dislodged a box of glimmering pesetas from the pile of treasure.

The coins were promptly shot into the sky through the blowhole, whereupon they rained down upon Curtis & Cyrus along with the harsh spray of water.

Meanwhile, as the pair set aside their differences to assess the coins and celebrate, Taehyung resurfaced beneath the opening with a desperate gasp for air.

"It's here. Bring in the tanks. We're gonna have to go in through the ocean," Cyrus told Bigg Bunny over the phone, which led Taehyung to quickly move out of view before he could be seen.

 _"And the husband?"_ Bunny asked.

"He won't need one," Cyrus answered simply, after he glanced down into the hole to find nothing but water.


	9. eight

"This better be good," Yoongi grumbled into his phone, after being woken up bright and early by the ringtone, that same morning.

 _"Min? It's Guk,"_ Jeongguk rushed out on the other end of the line, which led Yoongi to suspect he must've called using a payphone. _"It's_ bad _. It's_ real _bad. They got Tae--"_

"What??" Yoongi immediately sat up upon hearing that.

He threw the blankets from his lap, and snatched his trunks from the floor beside his bed as well, when Jeongguk told him, _"the treasure's in the blowhole at Clifton Point! They took him hostage!"_

**\---**

"Sure! Go have fun! Go get yourselves _killed_!" Hoseok shouted sarcastically, as he followed Namjoon, Jimin, & Seokjin down to the lowest deck of the yacht. "Go _pump some lead in your fellow man_! Go ahead!"

"What a pussy," Seokjin hummed in amusement.

"Hey. He is more man than you'll _ever_ be, honey," Jimin replied to that as-a-matter-of-factly.

"Hey! You ladies wanna move out?!" Yoongi snapped at the four of them, once they finally made it to the back of the boat, where he'd been sat waiting for them in his own boat. "They could've killed a whole graduation class by now!"

"Daddy!" Gemma reached for Namjoon's forearm, after she'd quickly descended the steps to catch up with them. "I'm scared..." she said.

"He's gonna be alright," Namjoon assured her, assuming she was scared for Taehyung, "I promise."

"I'm worried about _you_ ," Gemma clarified seriously, making her father grin in response.

"Oh, _bless you_ for that," he reached to gently cup her face, memorizing each detail as if it would be the last time they saw one another. "I'll see you at breakfast," he told her then, as if to promise that he would return soon.

**\---**

Each time the water would drain out of the cavern of the Clifton Point blowhole, Taehyung was forced to hold his breath, dive back into the water, and hold onto the _Aurelia_ 's cannon for dear life, as the next wave would come crashing in, then shooting up and out.

Taehyung had repeated this life-threatening cycle so many times, that by the time help had finally arrived for him, he'd lost count. However, he knew that if he tried to escape through the ocean, he would be swimming straight into a deathtrap of a different kind.

"God damn!" Bigg Bunny cursed from his water-bound seaplane, just a few yards offshore, when he spotted a familiar looking man running downhill, toward the blowhole. "How many times am I gonna have to kill this boy?!"

He drew his pistol and fired several shots at Jeongguk, who narrowly managed to make it down to the rocks near the shoreline without being hit.

Meanwhile--after the next wave had passed--Taehyung quickly swam away from the pile of treasure, in order to resurface at the bottom of the blowhole's cavern once more, after he spotted Cyrus & Curtis swimming in from the ocean, decked out in full scuba gear.

"Oh, shit," Taehyung panted, as he heard several gunshots zipping overhead, but he was abruptly distracted by the feeling of the rope around his waist being pulled, in an attempt to drag him back underwater.

" _SOMEBODY HELP_!!!" Taehyung screamed at the top of his lungs.

Then, like a knight in shining armor (or swim trunks, in this case), Jeongguk finally reached the mouth of the cavern.

"TAE!!!"

" _GUKKIE_?!!" Taehyung gasped at the sight of the man staring down at him because, having watched Jeongguk fall from a cliff just a few hours beforehand, he had assumed the absolute worst.

There wasn't much time for a proper reunion, however, considering the way Taehyung was harshly pulled beneath the water in the next instant by Cyrus, who had been the one to grab hold of the opposite end of the rope.

So Jeongguk immediately stood, and he kept his arms pressed tight against his sides, as he pencil dropped down into the cavern, landing in the water feet-first.

"SHIT!!" Bigg Bunny grumbled, as Jeongguk managed to slip away, completely unscathed, once again.

Despite his blurry vision--from not having a pair of goggles on him--Jeongguk caught the silver glint of the knife Cyrus pulled on Taehyung, which led him to swim over and place the older man in a chokehold to keep Cyrus away from him.

Jeongguk snatched Cyrus' goggles from his head with his free hand, and he ripped the regulator he'd been using to breathe from his mouth as well, before the suffocating strength of Jeongguk's arm led Cyrus to release his grip of the knife.

Taehyung was quick to catch it by the handle and plunge the blade of it into the man's thigh in retaliation.

Cyrus screamed from the pain, and he thrashed his way out of Jeongguk's hold, despite the way he simultaneously struggled not to drown.

Then, after having his oxygen harness pulled from his shoulders by the younger man, Cyrus helplessly watched as Jeongguk slipped the mouthpiece of the regulator past Taehyung's lips, allowing him to take in a deep breath of air, before he leaned away to allow Jeongguk to do the same.

Curtis, on the other hand, had already taken to grabbing a small boxful of treasures and bringing it up to Bigg Bunny.

"There's a whole lot more where this came from!" Curtis smirked at the pleasantly surprised expression on his boss' face, as he set the box up on the pontoon of the plane.

"Where's Cyrus?" Bunny asked him, just as the next wave came crashing into the cavern, which resulted in the blast of blood red water that went shooting out of the blowhole shortly after.

He gagged a bit at the sight, just as Curtis momentarily shuddered, where he'd still been floating in the water beside the plane.

Then, once Bigg Bunny retrieved a harpoon gun from _within_ the plane, he handed it down to Curtis and told him to, "find out who that was."

"Huh??" Curtis gaped at him incredulously.

"You heard me!" Bunny snapped, so Curtis accepted the weapon and reluctantly moved to dive back beneath the surface of the water.

Once the red wave had finally drained back into the sea, Taehyung & Jeongguk were able to let go of the trusty cannon that kept them from suffering the same bloody fate Cyrus had; Of being chewed up by the cavern and promptly spat back out through the blowhole.

Taehyung removed his goggles then, and handed them over to Jeongguk, who was finally able to get a clear glimpse of the glimmering pile of treasure they'd spent so many years searching for.

**\---**

"Oh, my God!!" Hoseok panicked from the backseat of Yoongi's speedboat, as they quickly approached Bigg Bunny's seaplane, only to immediately be shot at.

So Yoongi raised his shotgun and fired, leaving an array of holes in the side of the plane, and making the rapper rush inside of it for protection.

Then, upon glancing down into the water, and spotting a lone scuba diver heading for the underwater entrance of the blowhole, Yoongi shoved the gun into Hoseok's hands and told him to, "cover me."

"Where are you going??" Hoseok's eyes widened, just as he shakily moved to hold the gun with both hands. "Where's he going??" he asked Namjoon & Seokjin--who didn't seem to have an answer either--before they watched Yoongi haul himself over the edge of the boat and dive straight down into the water.

He swam toward Curtis as quickly as possible, but upon being spotted by the younger man, Yoongi was immediately shot in the thigh with a harpoon.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!" Yoongi seethed beneath the water, which was tainted red (once again) by his blood.

Then, Curtis' eyes widened with fear, when Yoongi grabbed a hold of the wire attached to the harpoon and steadily began to yank Curtis toward him.

Once he was close enough, Yoongi grabbed the gun from his hands and spun him around, whereupon Curtis was immediately met with the sight of Jeongguk's fist swinging toward his face.

Taehyung--who'd been wearing Cyrus' oxygen harness--swam up to Yoongi, in order to give him a quick breath of air, while Jeongguk wrestled Curtis upon the ocean floor.

"Make it cock!!" Hoseok exclaimed, as Seokjin struggled to cock Yoongi's shotgun.

"I can't make it cock!!" Jin yelled back, while Bigg Bunny attempted to lift the box of treasure from the pontoon and bring it inside the plane.

However, in doing so, he accidentally dropped all of it back into the water, and the heavy box inevitably fell upon the back of Curtis' head as a result.

"Give that to me!" Namjoon huffed, as he snatched the shotgun out of Seokjin's hand.

He stood tall at the front of the speedboat and aimed for the plane, but he quickly raised the barrel toward the sky, when he saw Taehyung & Yoongi breach the water's surface right beside it.

"You okay, Min?!" Taehyung panted.

"Yeah. Great," Yoongi replied sarcastically and, as he winced from the pain of his leg, he was unable to notice the way Bigg Bunny had climbed out of the plane.

He grabbed Taehyung by the oxygen harness and attempted to pull him up out of the water. "Get in the plane!!"

"NO!!" Taehyung briefly struggled to get out of the harness, before the rapper grabbed him by the hair instead. " _AH_!!"

"NO!!" Namjoon shouted, leading Seokjin & Hoseok to immediately sit up and watch the scene unfold.

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF HIM!!!" Yoongi attempted to climb up onto the pontoon, only for Bigg Bunny to kick him in the face with the sole of his shoe, making him grunt from the pain, just as he was forced back beneath the surface of the water.

"GET IN THE PLANE!!" Bunny shouted, when he turned to shove Taehyung onto the co-pilot's seat.

Then, having spotted the sizable rock of an emerald resting in the space between their seats, Taehyung reached for it and hid it behind his back, while Bunny struggled to start up the engine of the plane.

"Sit back!" he snapped, leading Taehyung to swing his arm out and bash him in the head with the uncut gem held tightly in his fist. He managed to get a few good hits in, before the rapper swung his own fist and knocked Taehyung out with a frustrated shout. "Shit!"

"Fuck!!" Yoongi cursed upon resurfacing again, and Jeongguk finally did the same, right as the seaplane began to pick up speed along the surface of the water.

Jeongguk swam after it as fast as he could, despite his breathlessness, but to no avail, as the plane was far too fast for him to catch up.

Then, the roaring sound of a different engine led Yoongi & Jeongguk to whip around and spot Jimin & _Gemma_ , of all people, zooming up on a pair of jet skis.

"HEY!!" Jeongguk waved his hands to gain their attention, and Gemma was quick to turn toward him & Yoongi.

"GEMMA!! NO!!" Namjoon called after her, as he felt this was far too dangerous a setting for his daughter, but Gemma carried on toward the pair without a second thought.

"GET ME ON THAT PLANE!!" Jeongguk rushed out, once she came to a splashing halt beside him.

"HANG ON!!" Gemma said, as he climbed up onto the seat and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"YOU HAPPY NOW, YA BIG BUTCH BASTARD?!" Jimin yelled at Hoseok then, as he circled the speedboat for a moment.

"JUST GO HELP MIN! GO HELP HIM!" Hoseok waved him off, so Jimin shook his head with a sigh and sped off to pick Yoongi up.

"I WANT YOU TO PULL ME RIGHT UP NEXT TO THE PORT SIDE!" Jeongguk requested of Gemma, over the sound of the jet ski.

"WHAT'S THE PORT SIDE??" she shook her head in confusion.

"UH--THE _LEFT_ SIDE!" he clarified.

"OH, OKAY!" she nodded understandingly, as they steadily approached the seaplane.

"GO, GO, GO! STAY WITH IT!" Jeongguk encouraged her, as the water became quite choppy with the movements of the plane.

"OH, MY GOD!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Gemma asked, when Jeongguk reached a hand out toward it.

"PULL RIGHT UP NEXT TO THE PONTOON!" he said, as they were now neck and neck with the plane.

"O-OKAY!!" she said and, despite the anxious feeling in her chest, Gemma turned a bit to the right.

Then, like a fish out of water, Jeongguk promptly launched himself onto the pontoon.

He held on tight, as Gemma turned away from the plane, which began to gain altitude shortly after.

"AHH, FUCK!!!" Jeongguk shouted out of fear, when he could no longer feel the ocean splashing up beneath his feet.

Everyone on the speedboat was forced to duck as well, when the plane eventually turned around and went soaring directly overhead.

"WHOA!!!" Yoongi gaped in astonishment, along with the others, as they watched Jeongguk go flying off with it. "Now _that's_ a man who loves his husband!!!"

"Motherfucker!!" Bigg Bunny exasperatedly cursed, when he glanced out of the window and spotted Jeongguk clinging to the side of his plane.

"That's it. That's _it_!!" he raised his pistol, which led Jeongguk's eyes to widen, as he realized there was nowhere left for him to go.

Bunny pulled the trigger then, to which Jeongguk quickly shifted to the side and narrowly missed being hit, just as he narrowly managed to remain hanging onto the pontoon.

Had it not been for Taehyung, who regained consciousness with the abrupt sound of the gunshot, Jeongguk would've either been shot in the head, or forced to fall to his death upon the water's surface.

So, with all the strength he could muster, Taehyung brought his feet up and kicked Bigg Bunny out of the plane, whereupon the rapper fell, several yards down, into the depths of the unforgiving sea.

He shot a few more holes into the side of his plane on the way down, causing fuel to begin leaking from the tank, and Taehyung to instinctively grab hold of the yoke (the steering wheel).

"TAE!!!" Jeongguk shouted, hoping for some sort of response, and he was momentarily relieved by the sound of his lover's voice calling his name in return.

"GUKKIE!!!" Taehyung anxiously panted, and he did his best to keep the plane in the air, while Jeongguk slowly but surely made his way onto the pilot's seat.

"Damn, baby!!" Jeongguk smiled when he could finally see Taehyung's face. "Since when do you know how to fly?!"

"Don't!!" Taehyung answered honestly. "Can't!!"

"Well, you're doin' a _great_ job!! I mean, we're still in the air, right?!" Jeongguk encouraged him, despite his own nerves, before he pressed a comforting kiss to the side of Taehyung's head.

"Technically!!" Taehyung nodded, taking deep, audible breaths in an attempt to calm himself down.

Then, when they experienced a brief bout of turbulence, before they steadily began to lose altitude, Jeongguk said, "oh, shit!! I think he hit the engine!!"

"Okay--uh-- _wings..._ flaps, air speed, altitude!!" he thought aloud, as his eyes quickly scanned over the controls. "Pedals... for the rudder!!" he pressed his foot against one of the pedals, leading the plane to veer to the right a bit. "Check!! Okay!!"

"H-How do you know what to do?!" Taehyung shook his head in confusion.

"Oh, you know!!" Jeongguk shrugged modestly. " _PlayStation_!!"

"Oh, God..." Taehyung breathed, opting to sit back in his seat, as Jeongguk wore an excited grin.

"Hang on, hang on!!" he said and, as he slowly pulled the yoke toward his chest, the plane began to regain some of its lost altitude. "Yeah!!" Jeongguk cheered.

"Oh, my God!! Jeongguk!! You're _doing it_!!" Taehyung patted Jeongguk's thigh with a beaming grin of his own. "We're flying!!"

"Yep!!"

"How do we land?!" Taehyung asked him then.

"Yep!!" Jeongguk said after a moment, causing Taehyung's smile to fall from his lips.

"Well, how'd you do it in the game?!"

"Uh... I'm not exactly sure how to pull it off!!" Jeongguk admitted. "But I do know that we've got to completely stall out, _just_ before we hit the water!!"

"Stall?!"

"Stop flying!!" Jeongguk answered.

" _Stop flying_?!" Taehyung asked incredulously.

"Yeah, and _land_... on the nice... soft... _water_..."

"Are we gonna die?" Tae swallowed thickly.

" _No_ ," Jeongguk immediately replied. "No, we're not."

"Where's Guk?" Hoseok asked from the speedboat, as they watched the plane fly away, then slowly come circling back around.

"He's probably flying the plane," Seokjin presumed.

"You mean there's _hope_?" Gemma asked.

"Not necessarily..." Jin shook his head in response.

"Hey, let me just say this--" Jeongguk began, but Taehyung was quick to cut him off.

"No--"

"Well, why not??"

" _Because_!" Taehyung replied exasperatedly. "Tell me _after_ we crash. That'll give me something to look forward to..."

Jeongguk's lips parted in wonder at that, before Taehyung leaned in to kiss him, soft and slow, as neither of them could be sure what would happen once they would attempt to land.

"Okay," Taehyung nodded determinedly, after he pulled away and continued to take deep breaths.

Then, once Jeongguk snapped himself out of his momentary trance, he looked back down at the controls and began to guide the plane downward.

"One hundred..." he began a countdown, keeping an eye on the altitude gauge, as well as the sea before them.

"Oh, God..."

"We got this, baby," Jeongguk hummed, to which Taehyung reached for his thigh once more and anxiously began to squeeze. "Eighty... sixty..."

" _Please_..." Taehyung whispered, closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to bear witness to whatever was about to happen.

"Forty..."

Then, the engine finally gave out, and they lost all power of the plane.

"PULL HER UP, BOY!!!" Yoongi shouted from the speedboat, as if Jeongguk would be able hear him. "PULL HER UP!!!"

"Baby," Taehyung breathed. "Baby, I love you..."

"I love you," Jeongguk replied, before he slowly pulled the yoke toward his chest once more, in order to pull the nose of the plane up.

They shared a brief nervous chuckle, as the pontoons momentarily skidded across the water's surface, before lifting up slightly and touching down again.

"Oh, shit--" Jeongguk cursed, as the plane suddenly veered left, and the nose promptly tipped forward, leading it to slowly sink into the sea.

The others watched from the speedboat, with anxious expressions and fast-beating hearts, until Taehyung suddenly resurfaced, with an audible gasp for air, a short while later.

"Jeongguk??" he looked around, after wiping the saltwater from his eyes, at which point the man finally resurfaced as well.

"I'm sorry, Taehyung! I love you! I've learned a lot from my mistakes!" Jeongguk immediately rushed out, just as he reached to swipe Taehyung's dark hair out of his eyes and cup his handsome face in his hands.

"Marry me!" Jeongguk pleaded.

"No! You haven't!" Taehyung shook his head fondly in response to that, before he easily accepted Jeongguk's proposal with, "and, _yes_! I will!" as well as a well-deserved kiss that neither of them wanted to pull away from.


	10. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE
> 
> Like most of the movies I've turned into fanfics so far, Fool's Gold has a really short ending, so I extended this epilogue a bit. I hope you enjoy!

_The discovery of the legendary Queen's Dowry made the news, of course._

_The divers--Jeongguk, Taehyung, Seokjin, and Yoongi--agreed to split the money they received as a reward evenly between the four of them._

_The treasures were removed from the blowhole by a team of professional divers, whereupon they were cleaned, polished, and promptly stored in the_ Min Jeon Maritime Museum _in Key West, of which Yoongi and Jeongguk were now proud co-owners._

_The photographs they took of the treasure pile as it was discovered in the cave, as well as each of their beaming faces after they'd hauled some of it aboard the yacht and held it in their hands, were now exhibited alongside the display cases in the museum. Their story, along with the Vangors', were printed on the walls with each of the photographs, for all to see and learn about._

_The night of the museum's grand opening, the treasure hunting crew joined one another for a celebratory dinner near the beach. Jeongguk, however, was eager to finish eating so he could finally show Taehyung something he planned to surprise him with the minute he had the funds to do so._

_Seokjin gave his girlfriend, Gemma, a knowing look when Jeongguk asked Taehyung to join him outside for a moment. Jimin, Hoseok, Yoongi, and Namjoon were all in on the surprise as well, seeing as Jeongguk told Seokjin, who immediately told the rest of them._

_But thankfully, for Jeongguk, Taehyung still seemed to be completely in the dark._

"Gukkie, where are you taking me?" Taehyung giggled, holding his hands out cautiously, after he'd been blindfolded with Jeongguk's tie and guided away from the restaurant.

"You'll see," Jeongguk assured him, with a giddy smile that Taehyung could hear in his voice, just as he heard what sounded like the wooden panels of a dock creaking beneath their shoes.

Jeongguk had a hand on the small of Taehyung's back, making sure to watch Tae's step so as to not let him trip, before his touch was suddenly leaving him.

"Jeongguk?" he asked, craning his head to the side, even if he couldn't see anything. "Where'd you go?"

"Over here, Tae," Jeongguk said from the opposite side of him, leading Taehyung to slowly turn around and face him. "You can take that off now," he said, in regards to the blindfold, so Taehyung reached up to untie the loose knot at the back of his head.

Then, his lips were parting and his eyes were alight with wonder, as he took in the sight of Jeongguk--kneeling before him on one knee--upon the deck of their very own yacht.

Taehyung giggled once more when Jeongguk reached into the pocket of his blazer and held out a small, black, velvet box.

"Taehyung, I know things between the two of us haven't always been smooth sailing--"

"Was that a diving pun?"

"Hush. I'm tryin' to ask you to marry me," Jeongguk told him.

"I already told you I would," Taehyung light-heartedly teased him.

So Jeongguk scoffed and said, "yeah, well, I wanted to do this right, you know? Like, _not_ in the middle of the ocean, after nearly _dying in a plane crash_..."

Taehyung couldn't help but tip his head back with another joyful laugh at that.

"The boat isn't a bribe for you to say yes, either. It's a replacement," Jeongguk said seriously, making Taehyung grow even fonder, if that was even possible, "since I was the one who sank our boat."

" _My_ boat," Taehyung playfully argued with him.

" _Our_ boat," Jeongguk smirked, "and look, I know it's not as big as Namjoon's, but it's not the size that matters, is it?"

So Taehyung stepped onto the deck and, with a coquettish grin, he asked, "are we still talking about _yachts_ , or...?"

"Are you still gonna _marry me_ , or...?" Jeongguk teased him back, before he opened up the velvet box to reveal a ring--the sight of which made Taehyung gasp aloud--and said, "my knee's about to start bruising."

Tae just rolled his eyes at that, while he lifted Jeongguk up onto his feet and leaned in to catch his lips in a deep kiss. "Yes, I'm still going to marry you..." he hummed against his lips, leading Jeongguk to take the ring from the box and slip it onto Taehyung's finger.

Then, Taehyung took a moment to admire the way it glistened in the light of the setting sun, before he kissed Jeongguk again and again, mumbling, "gonna marry you _and_ your sensitive kneecaps."

Jeongguk rolled his eyes as well then, and said, "they aren't _that_ sensitive," to which Taehyung flirtatiously bounced a brow at him.

"Maybe we should take this inside and find out..." he suggested.

"Maybe..." Jeongguk agreed, with a mischievous glint in his eye, as he laced their fingers together and moved to lead his fiancé into the cabin of their yacht.

**\---**

_Taehyung went back to college that winter, so he and Jeongguk split the rent on an apartment in Chicago, near his school, before they returned to Key West to be remarried, the following summer._

_It became their tradition to visit Yoongi and go diving together every year and, with Seokjin & Gemma becoming the proud owners of a Key West mansion in the meantime, Namjoon also had an excuse to visit the area more often._

_And everything from then on, as they say, was smooth sailing._


End file.
